[nw_arizona_granny]

http://citypages.com/databank/28/1394/article15776.asp

Everything We Know
About Security Is Wrong
So says counterterrorism contrarian Bruce Schneier.
And the transportation security administration is listening.

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/sabotaging-peaceful-nuclear-deal.html

August 23, 2007
Sabotaging the Peaceful Nuclear Deal Another Case of China’s Assassin’s Mace?

Source: SAAG

Guest Column by Bhaskar Roy

Leaving aside for a moment the merits and demerits of the Hyde Act and the ‘123’ Peaceful Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement, a close look at the Chinese machinations to derail this one vital part of a growing India-US strategic cooperation is imperative.

It may be recalled that in 1985 a somewhat similar nuclear cooperation agreement between China and the US under the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954, Section 123 was signed. China received special status and privileges in the Additional Protocol on the agreement as it was already one of the five recognised nuclear powers, or ‘N-5’. Briefly, China could pull out of the restrictions of this treaty at any time if it felt its national security interests so demanded. There was no penalty attached.

The 1980s was a period of close US-China-Pakistan cooperation against the Soviet Union which ultimately ended with the collapse of the communist giant. That was also a period of China’s illegal transfer of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to Pakistan, while Washington looked away benignly. Periodically, the Americans would place one Chinese entity or the other under temporary sanction for proliferation. For the Chinese proliferations, such sanctions were nothing more than a pinch. The USA had to save some face since it was the country in the forefront supposedly fighting proliferation, by proforma sanctions!

The 1989 Tien Anmen massacre by the Chinese army, the PLA, of pro-democracy students put a block in Sino-US relations. But interestingly, Chinese proliferation was hardly affected. The human rights establishment was working at one level against China, while covert relations relating to the Soviet Union and (later Russia) was hardly affected. The Americans knew well enough that China was arming Pakistan with strategic weapons to counter India. India was still perceived to be in the Soviet (Russia camp).

The Tien Anmen Square incident brought one of the worst periods of bilateral relations between Beijing and Washington. Both USA and the European Union imposed sanctions on China especially in the defence area. Some of these sanctions still exit. But this has not prevented the Chinese from procuring high technology from the west both overtly and covertly. Therefore, it took till 1997 for the US-China nuclear agreement to be ratified by the US Congress, but not without a good fight from opponents in the Congress.

American reactions to two widely known and proved cases of Chinese proliferation to Pakistan is interesting. One was the 199-92 transfer of Chinese made M-11 nuclear capable missiles to Pakistan. The missiles were photographed by US satellites lying in cases at Pakistan’s Sargoda air base. There was other evidence, too. The US President, however, refused to make a determination – that is, did not accept the information as credible and did not allow sanction against China.

The other case was the supply of 5000 ring magnets to a Pakistani nuclear facility in 1995 by a Chinese entity for enrichment technology. This was such an open and blatant a case that the Chinese found it difficult to deny. India had protested in 1996 during Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s visit.

It is also well known that Pakistani nuclear missiles like the Ghauri and the later Hatf series are based on North Korean and Chinese designs and components. Pakistan’s indigenous missiles programmes, the Hatf-I and Hatf-II are yet to prove successful in test flights. The cruise missile they displayed recently is also said to be a carbon copy of Chinese DH-10.

It may be interesting to recall that in the first week of May 1998, a high level team from the US State Department visited India, and then went on to Pakistan with a wide agenda on arms control, Afghanistan etc. Pakistan test fired the nuclear capable Ghauri during the American visit claiming it could hit any part of India. Unfortunately, instead of condemning their test during this presence on Pakistani soil and the attendant official Pakistani statement, Pakistan’s contribution to Afghanistan was praised by the American delegation.

India tested its nuclear weapons in May 1998 followed by Pakistan. Here were Pakistan nuclear weapons armed by China to threaten India. There was very little outrage from some political sections in India. Was it because China and its surrogate were involved?

In its efforts to placate China, Beijing’s anti-India regional and global strategies have largely been brushed under the carpet in India. On the last day of Prime Minister Vajpayee visit to China in June, 2003, Chinese soldiers look into custody a group of Indian border patrol guards along the LAC in the Eastern Sector, disarmed and roundly insulted them. The incident was almost blacked out in the Indian media, though a couple of newspapers exposed it. It would be embarrassing for the responsible Indian authorities to explain away the incident as a minor localised one. The Chinese action was deliberate and contravened the 1993 Peace and Tranquillity (P&T) Treaty on the border, and the 1996 Confidence Building Measures (CBM) agreement. The Chinese basically told us not to get carried away by the ‘success’ of Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit. The border issue was far from being resolved and the bilateral relations were largely deficient of political and strategic substance.

There was little or no sound from those who regularly visit fraternal China or the Community Party of China.

The issue of the India-US peaceful nuclear agreement transcends most of the other recent issues between India and China either bilaterally or multilaterally. Notwithstanding the prospects and consequences of the agreement and the overarching Hyde Act, there is a need to understand that we are no longer in the Cold War fringes of the later 20th century. The world has moved into the 21st century with the signature of ‘9/11’. The Asia Pacific region has replaced the importance of Europe for most of the 20th century. In this region India and China are critical players along with Japan.

It is common understanding that the Indo-US deal is not simply a nuclear energy issue. Its ambit covers a much larger bilateral and multilateral relationship between India and other countries, especially the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

It is expected to be another step in India’s full integration with the entire spectrum of globalisation and would allow it to participate more effectively in the international coalition against proliferation and terrorism. There is no reason why India should remain outside the global nuclear arrangement.

China is still banking on Japan’s pacifist constitution which is just beginning to show some stirring. This does not mean a nuclear path. The Asian countries which suffered under Japanese occupation during World War-II will definitely close ranks against Japan. But China is paranoid about Japan, given the history between the two countries. Further, Japan’s military relation with the USA has been expanding rather rapidly in the 21st century, especially the expanded US-Japan security cooperation agreement. There is also a strong Chinese apprehension, not entirely misplaced, that Tokyo is an encouragement for Taiwan’s defiance of the mainland.

India is a different calculation for China altogether. India has all the attributes and potential to challenge Beijing’s unipolar domination of Asia ambition. Beijing is constantly reviewing the Comprehensive National Strength (CNP) between the two countries. CNP is a measure formulated by the Chinese in the 1980s to measure the actual strength of a country. It takes into account size, population, technological and scientific development, economy, etc. of a particular country..

The Indian parameters in the CNP is warning China somewhat. The skyscrapers of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong with their glittering lights is not the real China. The huge foreign exchange reserves of $1.5 trillion and the FDI are matters not of total faith. One has also to look at the officially recorded 85 thousand labour strikes in 2005, environmental degradation, energy crunch, and the aging factor of the majority of working population in China which will start peaking from 2020 that may quickly eat into some of the impressive statistics.

China opposed the nuclear agreement from the very beginning. In recent weeks, this opposition through the official media has become uncharacteristically sharp. The main mouthpieces of the Communist Party, the People’s Daily, and of the armed forces, the Liberation Army Daily (LAD) have been employed to attack the agreement.

Both the Chinese Communist Party constitution and the State construction make it clear that the media is not independent. The People’s Daily and the LAD project the views for the party and the PLA at the highest level.

The Chinese media primarily attacked the USA trying to sabotage India’s sovereignty and foreign policy, an unequal agreement leaving Pakistan out, demolishing the NPT and other non-proliferation regimes, etc. They also praise the BJP for rising to protect India from US imperialism. No mention of the leading opponents to the deal, the CPM and the Left front is made. This is an omission to be taken seriously. The Chinese are masters in making very serious statements through omission.

On the other hand these Chinese articles state that the agreement will help India’s nuclear weapon’s programme, suggesting the US will covertly allow development of India’s nuclear programme. Also stated was, this development would give countries like Iran the legitimate right to embark on the nuclear weapons path. The implication is obvious.

The articles under reference are far more serious than the regular criticism of India in the Chinese media. Supporting an opposition party against the legitimate government of a country openly and democratically elected is rare especially in the post–Mao Zedong generation. This is not only a serious interference in the internal affairs of another country, especially a ‘friendly’ country. This is tantamount to encouraging an opposition party in India to topple the government – a very unfriendly act and a non-traditional security threat to India. Nothing less than sabotage.

The Chinese military and intelligence strategic experts have been studying for sometime an ancient non-traditional warfare strategy called the ‘Assassin’s Mace’ (Sho Shou Jian). Briefly, the strategy is either plant an agent inside the court of the opponent King or Chief with a silent weapon – the mace. The assassin is to strike when he receives the signal from his masters. Or else, win over an important member of the opponent’s court to do the same job. The assassin’s name or identity is never be mentioned and the action is one of common cause. Of course, it benefits the controller most.

The post American track record obviously raises questions about their motives. The Chinese track record, past and present, has many more questions. The only interest for us is India’s interest. While chasing the eagle in the sky, let us not forget the tiger at the door.

(The author is an eminent China analyst with many years of experience of study on the developments in China. The views expressed by the author are his own. He can be reached at grouchohart@yahoo.com)

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/2007/08/international-terrorism-in-canada-is.html

August 23, 2007
International terrorism in Canada: Is the Canadian police doing its job?

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=81562
Thursday, August 23, 2007

Ozay MEHMET

On August 27, 2007, Turkish Canadians will hold a memorial service in Ottawa to remember the killing of Colonel Attila Alt;kat by Armenian terrorists exactly a quarter of a century ago. The killers remain free at large. Canadian justice is yet to be served.

Many are asking whether the Canadian police are doing their job?

International terrorism has found a fertile ground in Canada long before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Two notable cases are: (1) the downing on June 19, 1985 of Air India flight 182 by Sikh terrorists; and, (2) the assassination of a Turkish diplomat three years earlier by Armenian terrorists in the Canadian national capital.

The Air India inquiry, set up by the Harper government, to ease the mind of a justifiably skeptical public has revealed some disturbing facts, notably the communication disconnect that seems to exist between intelligence and police/security systems. Top security experts giving evidence at the public inquiry stated that, just days prior to the bombing of flight 182, the then director general of counter-terrorism had come into possession of intelligence that Sikh terrorists would indeed bring down a plane.

Similar information was transmitted to security officials – as became known in the inquiry later - in the case of the Armenian terrorist attack on the Turkish embassy in 1982. No follow-up action was taken and the terrorists carried out their bloody schemes with relative impunity.

In 1985, 329 innocent people died when AI flight 182 was downed off the coast of Ireland by a Sikh terrorist bomb. Two Sikh nationalists, Parmar and Reyat, were given light five-year sentences when they confessed their role in the bombing. However, it is not certain whether they were the real masterminds of the bombing and whether the Canadian police and security services were as diligent and efficient as they should have been. The on-going public inquiry on the AI terrorism is turning up amazing revelations.

Thus, when Graham Pinos, a former justice department lawyer and later a terrorism expert in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, first heard of the plane bombing, he revealed his thoughts at the public inquiry in the following terms: I was greatly upset. I said: ‘Holy expletive, they knew, they knew.’ I had a distinct impression that they knew something was going to happen.

25 year on, assassins remain at large

The same sad reality is valid in the case of the murder of the Turkish diplomat, Attila Alt;kat. Twenty-five years ago, this innocent person was murdered in a cold-blooded attack at the intersection of Champlain Bridge in downtown Ottawa as he was driving to work. The sketch of the Armenian terrorist who carried out this murder was published on the local TV broadcast on August 28, 2006. The reporter, Charlie Greenwell, has unearthed an incredible set of information about this case, including information about the car (a yellow 1970 Citroen) rented in Montreal ostensibly for the contract killing in Ottawa. Even more astonishing, the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa had, days before the murder, conveyed an official warning of impending terrorist action to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Affairs in Ottowa and was requesting protection; the warning fell on deaf ears.

The police and security remained inactive, in effect providing international terrorism a free hand for their dastardly activities on Canadian soil.

Even now, after so many years, there are huge problems with the Canadian police and security services when it comes to protection against international terrorism in Canada, especially in the national capital. First of all, there is the age-old Canadian problem of divided jurisdiction and responsibility. As happened in the 1982 murder of diplomat Alt;kat, there was a significant delay in response on the part of the Canadian police as the question of who should respond (whether the federal Royal Mounted Canadian Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the City of Ottawa Police) was taken up. As the police and security forces discussed possible responses, the murderer literally got away.

More significantly, as Charlie Greenwell of the Ottawa TV Channel CJOH has indicated, the Alt;kat case has languished in police hands as a cold file case. In other words, the police have done precious little to trace and arrest the murderer and his terrorist team.

Canadian justice has failed miserably in both the Air India and the Alt;kat cases. The war against international terrorism is being lost in Canada.

Turkish Canadians remember on August 27th not only the innocent Turkish diplomat Alt;kat, but at the same time they mourn the miscarriage of Canadian justice.

Ironically, the Harper government has suddenly decided to recognize the so-called Armenian “genocide” and the Canadian Parliament has adopted pro-Armenian resolutions. Turkish Canadians are left wondering whether the miscarriage of Canadian justice is part of a political strategy of rewarding Armenian terrorism.

Ozay Mehmet, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ont., CANADA. He can be reached at mehmet5010@rogers.com

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2007/Aug/tertraisAug07.asp

Not a ‘Wal-Mart’, but an ‘Imports-Exports Enterprise’: Understanding the Nature of the A.Q. Khan Network
Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 5 (August 2007)

by Bruno Tertrais

Strategic Insights is a bi-monthly electronic journal produced by the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NPS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

For a PDF version of this article, click here.
Introduction

Much has been written about the A.Q. Khan network since the Libyan “coming out” of December 2003. However, most analysts have focused on the exports made by Pakistan without attempting to relate them to Pakistani imports. To understand the very nature of the network, it is necessary to go back to its “roots,” that is, the beginnings of the Pakistani nuclear program in the early 1970s, and then to the transformation of the network during the early 1980s. Only then does it appear clearly that the comparison to a “Wal-Mart” (the famous expression used by IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei) is not an appropriate description. The Khan network was in fact a privatized subsidiary of a larger, State-based network originally dedicated to the Pakistani nuclear program. It would be much better characterized as an “imports-exports enterprise.”
I. Creating the Network: Pakistani Nuclear Imports

Pakistan originally developed its nuclear complex out in the open, through major State-approved contracts. Reprocessing technology was sought even before the launching of the military program: in 1971, an experimental facility was sold by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) in 1971. In 1974, Pakistan signed a contract with the French company Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN) for the sale of a large reprocessing plant at Chashma, which was to use the fuel irradiated at KANUPP.[1] Nonproliferation concerns led the French to suggest a change in the design that would make Pakistan unable to produce weapon-grade plutonium. Islamabad’s refusal led Paris to stop the execution of the contract in 1978. This did not prevent European firms to participate in the Pakistani nuclear program. In fact, SGN engineered the pilot reprocessing plant at PINSTECH (“New Labs”), while Belgonucléaire designed the overall building and built a fuel refabrication laboratory.[2] However, the 1974 Indian test led Western countries to be much more cautious about their nuclear exports to Pakistan.

This is one of the reasons why Islamabad launched a second, secret nuclear program in the mid-1970s which was to use the HEU route. The launching of this program saw the beginning of a massive campaign of imports from Western firms. Equipment sought by Pakistan included key elements for centrifuges (maraging steel, high-frequency inverters, high-vacuum valves, scoops pre-forms, bottom bearing pre-forms…). But the imports network also sought many elements for the plutonium program (hot cell manipulators, reprocessing equipment), as well as components meant for the nuclear weapons themselves (high-speed electronic switches). Measuring equipment was also actively sought. Pakistani imports also included nuclear materials and metals. Imports ranged from full-scale installations to subcomponents.

Some of the most significant of these imports included uranium conversion facilities (CES Kalthof GmbH, Germany, late 1970s); several thousands tubes of maraging steel (Van Doorne Transmissie, Netherlands, late 1970s); a yellowcake production unit (Société d’études et de travaux pour l’uranium, France, late 1970s) ; a reprocessing facility (Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles, France, and Belgonucléaire, Belgium, late 1970s); a heavy water production facility (Belgonucléaire, late 1970s); and a tritium production facility (Nukleartechnik GmbH, Germany, late 1980s).

At the same time, Pakistan resorted to China as an alternate source of imports. Chinese assistance developed after ZA Bhutto signed a bilateral agreement to that effect at the occasion of a visit to Beijing in late May 1976. China helped Pakistan overcoming some of the difficulties they had in mastering enrichment technology. It supplied uranium hexafluoride to Pakistan, as well as a HEU-based nuclear weapons design.

The imports network was originally a “Khan network,” but not in reference to A.Q. Khan. A different individual was running the show: most imports from the West were supervised by Munir Ahmad Khan, the head of the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission and arguably the true “father” of Pakistan’s bomb. One of the network’s key operatives, and probably its chief operating officer for Europe was SA Butt, a physicist turned diplomat, who was assigned to various embassies. The network began operating in earnest in 1976. Having just returned from the Netherlands, A.Q. Khan soon played a crucial role, but only in the management of imports related to the centrifugation technology. SA Butt managed both the uranium-related and plutonium-related imports.[3] He remained in charge at least until the late 1980s.

The imports network’s modus operandi included a combination of several elements that ensured its success and longevity. Pakistan resorted systematically to the use of its embassies abroad, and often to Pakistani-born foreign nationals. It paid more than the market value of the items purchased. The Pakistanis played smart and were always one step ahead of the legality. As exports controls began to be reinforced in the late 1970s, they purchased individual components rather than entire units. After, they often learned how to reproduce the parts. Pakistan also sought to import “pre-forms,” which are not necessarily covered by exports controls. Besides classic tricks such as multiple buyers, multiple intermediaries, front companies and false end-user certificates, Pakistan used more imaginative tactics: for instance, it sometimes hid a critical component in a long list of useless material. It also often limited its “shopping lists” to a few samples, in order to learn how to reproduce them. A British intelligence report stated in 2003 that no less than 95 Pakistani organizations and government bodies, including diplomatic posts abroad, had assisted in the country’s nuclear imports.[4]

The Pakistani modus operandi was very similar from the one used by Iraq in the 1980s. Baghdad then resorted to an increasingly refined imports strategy which heavily relied on multiple fake companies, and sought at least two sources for any given material it needed. Iraqi embassies were heavily involved. Note also that several individuals and companies (German and Swiss in particular) were selling to both countries. One difference, however, is that the Pakistani network was more centralized than the Iraqi one.

The success of the imports network was not only due to the high degree of Pakistani know-how, but also to the active cooperation of Western firms. Pakistan took advantage of inadequate exports control in light of the appetite of Western firms to sell technology abroad. The first IAEA guidelines published in 1974 were very limited. It was a grey market rather than a black one. Many industrialists reasoned that “if we do not do it, others will” and deliberately violated the law. Others believe that Pakistan would not be able to use the components for military usage. Many just did not realize that they were helping Islamabad to get the Bomb—or did not want to know.[5] Finally, some of the main figures involved in Pakistani imports have stated that they were very deliberately helping the spread of nuclear technology, arguing that it would make the world more secure.[6]

European firms were particularly targeted. Pakistan also took advantage of the existence of liberal trade policies among European Community members, which allowed Pakistan to hide the final destination of a given equipment. But the most important reason was that despite the wake-up call of the Indian test, many European countries in the 1970s were not entirely committed to the best nonproliferation efforts. Proliferation was not yet much of a concern, and exports controls were particularly weak. There was also a political element. There was resistance to U.S. pressures, either because of some countries’ independent political stance vis-à-vis the United States, such as France or Switzerland, or because of their desire to promote national products: as an observer puts it, “West Germany and the Netherlands made a national priority of promoting manufactured exports, particularly when they involved precision engineering, and they viewed some of the American lobbying about exports to Pakistan as just another form of trade competition.”[7] Also, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, the three URENCO countries, were overtly promoting an open enrichment market. Along with other European countries, they worried about a U.S. domination of the nuclear market: the formation of URENCO was “an act of resistance.”[8] Finally, the bureaucracies would not always implement political guidance. Attitudes would change only slowly.

In sum, three words can help understanding the attitudes of European firms and individuals involved in Pakistani nuclear imports: denial, delusion, and defiance.

Finally, there was the extent of A.Q. Khan’s personal contacts on the continent. A.Q. Khan’s personal contribution was to bring back a long list of companies and of individuals he personally knew, who could be helpful for Pakistani imports. After returning to Pakistan in December 1975, he wrote to several former colleagues to get specific technical information.[9] He relied on long-time acquaintances such as Henk Slebos, a Dutch metallurgist he met in 1964; Peter Griffin, a British engineer he met in 1976; Friedrich Tinner, a Swiss engineer and long-time associate; Gotthard Lerch, a German engineer met in the 1970s; and Abdus Salam, a British national and another personal friend.

The high number of German companies involved in Pakistani nuclear imports can be explained by several factors. The know-how of this country in machine-tools, engineering and precision mechanics is well-known. Germany was also involved in the nuclear enrichment business through URENCO. Not being a nuclear power, its exports controls in this field were even less efficient than those of France and the United Kingdom for reasons of expertise. For the same reason, scientists and engineers with nuclear expertise from these two countries were likely to be involved in national nuclear programs. German nuclear exports controls were for a long time notoriously weaker than those of major other European States; this reflected a deliberate policy of self-assertiveness in the face of U.S. pressures.[10] Finally, A.Q. Khan had extensive contacts in Germany dating from his stay in Europe. As a result, in 1990, a member of the German Parliament could say that the country’s export controllers motto was still “you never hear anything, you never see anything—and, in particular, you never block anything.”[11] In 1989, the Stern magazine reported that throughout the 1980s, no less than 70 German firms had sold nuclear-related goods to enterprises known to be associated with the Pakistani program.[12]

Some of these explanations also apply to Switzerland. Early Swiss nuclear exports restrictions were strictly respected even if it meant that a proliferation risk might be taken. As a commentator puts it, “rules are rules, especially to the Swiss.”[13] As in the case of Germany, the legalist stance of Berne was “part of a strategy to promote the interests of the Swiss industry.”[14] More specifically, in the case of Switzerland, some have perceived for a long time “a divergence between the Swiss ideal of neutrality that include freedom of trade and the concept of nonproliferation.”[15] These attitudes may have persisted. As late as 2004, the Malaysian police report about the network was seen in some federal circles as “a possible attempt to damage the image of Switzerland abroad and the competitiveness of Swiss exports.”[16]

But U.S. exports were far from being immune to criticism. As late as 1994, a U.S. General Accounting Office report stated that they were still woefully inadequate.[17] Between 1998 and 1992, more than 80% applications for exports of nuclear-related equipment to Pakistan were approved (650 out of 808), including three to sensitive end-users (out of nine applications).[18] Pakistan actively sought materials and equipment from the United States. There is, in fact, a high number of documented “failures” by Pakistan to import nuclear-related material from the United States. This indicates either that the United States was particularly targeted, or that U.S. exports controls were more efficient—or a little bit of both, as is probable.
II. Reversing the Flow? Pakistani Nuclear Exports

Starting somewhere around the mid 1980s, Pakistan began to export its nuclear technology and know-how. However, the known cases of Pakistani exports are fairly different one from another. An in-depth examination of the four documented country cases (Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Libya) is necessary to understand the complexity of the Khan affair.
The Iranian case

Exports to Iran are a complex story. In fact, there seem to have been three different phases in the decade-long history of Pakistani transfers to Iran.

First, there was a period of limited cooperation probably approved by general Zia-ul-Haq himself, which began in 1987. A secret bilateral agreement was reportedly signed in 1987, which included provisions for training of Iranian scientists.[19] A negotiation took place in Dubai of the selling of P1 centrifuge diagrams, an enrichment plant diagram, and spare parts for at least one P1 machine.[20] Zia had, it seems, had authorized the initiation of a bilateral nuclear cooperation while asking for it to remain limited.[21] He did not want Iran to get the Bomb. Meanwhile, Khan was reportedly telling military authorities that the transfers were of very limited importance, since they concerned only used and or obsolete equipments.[22] He probably felt “covered” by Zia’s approval for technology transfers to Tehran. But he may also have been encouraged by general Mirza Aslam Beg, in his capacity of Army Vice-Chief of Army staff, who was ready to do more. MA Beg reports that emissaries from Iran first approached Pakistan near the end of the Iran–Iraq war, with broad requests of military sales, which were according to him denied by President Zia. This is consistent with what a former Pakistani ambassador to Iran reported, namely that Zia refused to abide by an Iranian request for mastery of the fuel cycle, made in Tehran in January 1988.[23]

After Zia’s death, the two parties may have envisioned a more complete cooperation, under pressure from general Beg, but probably with the knowledge of political authorities. A.Q. Khan was certainly encouraged to act in this direction by Beg and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan when they abruptly came to power after Zia’s death in August 1988. According to a Pakistani account, A.Q. Khan’s first move when Benazir Bhutto came to power (December 1988) was to ask her to make him PAEC director; when she refused, he chose to place his loyalty with MA Beg and GI Khan.[24] Beg has consistently denied having approved such transfers, but has confirmed the scope of nuclear discussions between Tehran and Islamabad at the time, at Iran’s initiative. But he and Benazir Bhutto were constantly telling them to go and see the other party.[25] A former U.S. administration official, Henry Rowen, says that Beg threatened in January 1990 to transfer military usage nuclear technology should Washington stopped arms sales to Pakistan.[26] There is evidence that Benazir Bhutto’s government knew about this cooperation. She was told in 1989 by Hashemi Rafsandjani that the Pakistani military had offered nuclear technology to Iran.[27] A.Q. Khan has said that the transfers were encouraged by the military adviser to Mrs. Bhutto, general Imtiaz Ali, and explicitly authorized by Beg.[28]

In a third phase, the two countries seem to have begun a closer cooperation, in line with a growing convergence of interests. Two events changed the Pakistani perspective. One was the invasion of Kuwait. The other was the imposition of U.S. sanctions under the Pressler amendment. An Iranian-Pakistani nuclear cooperation was coherent with general Beg’s strategic choices. Beg initially approved Pakistan’s participation in the coalition against Iraq; but by the end of 1990 he changed his mind.[29] He actively sought a partnership with Iran to protect against the United States.[30] Political reasons were not the only ones at play: general Beg thought it was a good way to finance the defense budget, especially in the light of coming U.S. sanctions. There were high-level contacts to that effect between the two governments during the year 1991. Envoys of Hashemi Rafsanjani visited Sharif in February and July 1991. It is difficult to know with certainty what became of these projects. Some claim that Pakistan and Iran did agree on nuclear cooperation and discussed the possibility of mutual defense treaty.[31] What is clear is that the bilateral cooperation that was envisioned by the two countries was a two-way street: it did not concern only nuclear technology, but also conventional arms, probably oil, as well as mutual political support. The nuclear transfers of that period involved diagrams for P1 and P2 centrifuges, 500 used P1 centrifuges in a disassembled form—all delivered in the years 1994-1995; as well as a document describing “the casting of enriched and depleted uranium metal into hemispheres, related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons components.”[32] Some shipments reportedly took place after 1995, perhaps as late as 2000.[33] This second influx of Pakistani technology to Iran took place during Mrs. Bhutto’s second mandate. Given the extent of government-to-government contacts, it certainly took place with the knowledge of several key authorities.
The North Korean case

The Pakistan-North Korea strategic connection was established in 1971, when ZA Bhutto made Pyongyang a major source of conventional arms procurement. The Iraq-Iran war cemented the partnership between the two countries, who both aided Tehran’s missile program.[34] A defense cooperation package was agreed upon at the occasion of Benazir Bhutto’s December 1993 visit to Pyongyang. The precise role of A.Q. Khan remains unclear. He travelled several times to North Korea, and he may very well have been the initiator of the missile deal. He was given a tour of Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities in 1999.[35] It is possible that he felt that he was “covered” by the military authorities because of the Iran precedent. In any case, it seems likely that the military knew about the nuclear exports. General Jehangir Karamat (chief of Army staff from 1996 to 1998) seems to have played a significant role in the DPRK-Pakistan connection.[36]

Known transfers lasted until around July 2002. According to Musharraf, “probably a dozen” centrifuges were sold.[37] Most available sources refer to P-1 technology, but some have suggested they may have included P-2 centrifuges.[38] There are also allegations of a broader cooperation in the nuclear area.[39]

The most likely explanation of what happened with North Korea is that it was a quid pro quo. This is what the U.S. government believed in the late 1990s.[40] However, the story may be more complex. Nuclear exports began much later than missile imports. Bhutto is on the record for stating that her 1993 deal involved paying for the missiles in cash. Well-informed analysts have stated that the latter were financed by “money and rice.”[41] The Pakistani “reserve crunch” might have prompted Pakistan to turn from cash to nuclear technology in return for missile technology.[42] The most detailed studies about the DPRK-Pakistan relationship have refrained from drawing definitive conclusions about its nature, especially given the uncertainties about the exact scope of the nuclear relationship.[43]
The Iraqi case

Available sources indicate that the initial contact with Iraq was made just a few weeks after the invasion of Kuwait. A note from the Iraqi intelligence services, dated October 6, reports that A.Q. Khan was ready to help Baghdad to “establish a project to enrich uranium and manufacture a nuclear weapon.” It reported that A.Q. Khan was prepared to give Iraq “project designs for a nuclear bomb.” Equipments were to be transferred from European companies to Iraq via a Dubai-based company.[44] The Iraqi government, however, feared that it was a sting operation.[45]

Such a gesture would have been consisted with general Beg’s opposition to Pakistani participation in the international coalition. At the same time, however, if Beg was keen to help Iran, it would have been illogical for him to support the development of an Iraqi bomb at the same time. Helping Saddam Hussein, Iran’s mortal enemy, to get nuclear weapons might have been consistent with Beg’s political preferences (a staunch opponent of U.S. influence in the region), but completely at odds with his personal culture (a Shi’a with strong admiration for Iran).
The Libyan case

While the nuclear relationship with Libya began in the mid-1970s, concrete transfers took place only after the reinvigoration of Libya’s program in 1995. Contact was made the Khan network at that time.[46] In 1997, Libya received 20 complete L1 centrifuges and most of the components for another 200. In 2000, it received two complete but “second-hand” L2 centrifuges, as well as one cylinder containing 1,7 ton of UF6. In late 2001 or early 2002, documentation on nuclear weapon design, including the “Chinese blueprint,” was transferred. In late 2002, components for a large number of L2 began to arrive.[47]

The reasons behind the Libya transfers remain unclear. Personal greed, and perhaps a temptation to give the Bomb to a Muslim country that had helped so much Pakistan in the past were in all likelihood the determining factors. But one has to wonder how it was possible that transfers of nuclear technology to Libya could have taken place after 2001. It seems that A.Q. Khan was allowed to continue his travels even after he was ousted of KRL in March 2001.[48] The reason may be that he had the keys to the imports network, still vital for the Pakistani nuclear program. (He remained “Special Adviser to the Chief Executive on Strategic and KRL Affairs” after his dismissal.)
III. Understanding the Nature of the Network
Different cases, different responsibilities

Pakistani nuclear exports were probably, to a significant extent, an individual initiative. Most knowledgeable observers of the Pakistani scene agree that A.Q. Khan had an important degree of autonomy. If nuclear exports had been a consistent State policy, then it would have been logical that PAEC had a role in it too, which does not seem to have been the case. This does not exonerate Pakistani authorities but, as an observer put it, “Khan likely exceeded whatever mandate he received from the Pakistani leadership.”[49] He may have felt that he was “covered” for whatever he did by the large amount of trust and autonomy he was enticed with. It seems in fact that A.Q. Khan was able to manipulate the government and the Pakistani authorities did not want to know what was going on. For instance, he would tell the Prime minister that he needed to Iran for reasons of national security, and that would be enough. “As long as Khan’s group delivered the goods, no state authority questioned his tactics.”[50] Khan’s personal profits were reportedly known by the ISI since 1988, but Pakistan’s military authorities refused to act.[51] Such moves were made easy by the secrecy and compartmentalization of Pakistan’s program until the late 1990s, which did not create the best conditions for oversight.

Three events changed the picture: the 1998 tests, the 1999 coup, the 2001 attacks and their aftermath. There was a progressive reorganization of Pakistan’s nuclear program between 1998 and 2001. The nuclear laboratories were reined in and A.Q. Khan was forced to retire. Several explanations exist as per the reasons of this decision. Some U.S. officials have said that this was an American request.[52] It may also have been Musharraf’s own initiative—or a combination of both. After the 1998 tests, Pakistan was under strong pressure from the United States to show responsible behaviour, and in dire need of Western assistance. An inquiry by the newly-created National Accountancy Bureau had revealed unapproved financial transactions; it was not pursued due to the sensitivity of the matter.[53] According to several sources, the ISI followed A.Q. Khan to Dubai in the fall of 2000. When asked for an explanation by Musharraf, who was concerned about financial improprieties, he complained about the surveillance, gave false excuses and continued his travels.[54] The same thing happened when he was asked by Musharraf to explain an aircraft landing in Iran.[55] A.Q. Khan was clearly reluctant to abide by the new rules, which included a better oversight of nuclear officials. He was making it known that he disapproved the reorganization of Pakistani nuclear policy.[56]

To understand the complexity of the case, and the reasons why it remains difficult, to this day, to distinguish the various responsibilities, it is important to note that most known exports happened between 1988 (the death of Zia) and 1999 (the Musharraf takeover). In August 1988, the program came into the hands of President chairman GI Khan and chief of Army staff Mirza Aslam Beg. In the ensuing decade, the structure of Pakistani power was complex, and divided amongst three individuals: the President, the Prime Minister, and the chief of Army staff. For this reason, it is obviously difficult to answer to the question “who knew what?.”

What seems clear is twofold. First, the Prime Ministers during that period (Bhutto and Sharif in particular) were not completely out of the loop. Indeed, the Pakistani government openly acknowledges the role of two individuals close to the Bhutto family: general Imtiaz Ali, military secretary to ZA Bhutto and defense adviser to his daughter Benazir, and family dentist (sic) Zafar Niazi.[57] Second, a handful of Pakistani leaders seem to have played a key role. One was general MA Beg. There is ample evidence of his involvement in Iranian-Pakistani nuclear cooperation. As stated above, his personal background and political preferences led him to take a consistent pro-Iranian, anti-American stance. Another key individual may have been president GI Khan. One source reported Khan as being actually in charge of the nuclear program from 1975 until 1991.[58] As defense minister, he was involved in the decision to make Kahuta a separate entity under A.Q. Khan.[59] He was a member of the three-men KRL coordination board when it was created in 1976.[60] As finance minister, he was present at the first 1983 cold tests.[61] He also gave tax-free status to the BCCI, which was used as a conduit for Pakistani nuclear imports and exports.[62] Finally, it is hardly conceivable that successors to MA Beg as chiefs of Army staff (generals Nawaz, Kakar, Karamat, and Musharraf) were unaware of any transfers of nuclear technology. At the very least, they proved unwilling to ensure that A.Q. Khan was not able to proceed with unsanctioned exports. A.Q. Khan has reportedly admitted that both Kakar and Karamat knew and approved of his dealings with North Korea.[63] Finally, during the period 1987-1999, A.Q. Khan, who was certainly good at manipulating the system, may have been himself manipulated as to ensure “plausible deniability.”

Pakistani nuclear exports were thus partly a personal initiative, partly a State policy, in various proportions according to the circumstances. Different transfers probably reflected different situations. The apparent quid pro quo with North Korea may have been a State policy made with knowledge of most high-level Pakistani authorities, including Bhutto and Sharif. Of course, no element of Islamic solidarity was present there. Rather, it was the need to ensure the continued development and reliability of the liquid-fuel Pakistani missiles. The case of Libya was probably an A.Q. Khan initiative. However, this may also have been “payback time”: when Tripoli agreed to give financial support for the Pakistani program in the early 1970s, it asked for nuclear technology in return. ZA Bhutto never committed himself to go that far.[64] But he may have created expectations in Ghaddafi’s mind. The offer to Iraq was probably A.Q. Khan’s own initiative. Iran is the most complex case. The launching of a military-oriented nuclear cooperation was probably not sanctioned by President Zia ul-Haq. However, in the period 1988-1995, exports to Iran were known by most Pakistani leaders, including Prime Ministers Bhutto and Sharif, and deliberately encouraged by some, such as MA Beg and GI Khan.

It seems that there was no constant and consistent State policy governing the nuclear exports made, or sanctioned, by Pakistani officials in the past 30 years. Concrete interests, personal and national, seem to have been the primary driver behind these exports. They were made possible by the large freedom of manoeuvre given to A.Q. Khan’s activities until the end of the 1990s. But there was, at least in one instance, in the late 1980s, an attempt to make nuclear exports part of a broader national strategic orientation.
Not a Wal-Mart, but an imports-exports enterprise

Pakistani nuclear-related exports began about a decade after their imports network was set up in the mid-1970s. The Pakistanis thus had acquired a very significant experience in dealing with nuclear transfers, legal and illegal. Contacts and procedures used for Pakistani imports were sometimes of direct use to exports when they involved transfers from Western firms, intermediaries and shell companies.

Once fully matured, it comprised several main nodes: the UAE (the company’s headquarters), Malaysia, Turkey, South Africa—not including various personal properties around the world. There were half a dozen workshops around the globe, with Dubai serving as the main platform for re-exporting. A.Q. Khan set up dozens of shell companies to that effect, sometimes just for one-time use. A total of about 50 people were actively involved in the network.[65] But A.Q. Khan operated with a dozen of key close associates. It was in more than one respect a family business. Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan national, was the chief operating officer of the exports network. His headquarters were the Dubai-based firm SMB Computers. His uncle, S.M. Farouq, was another key operative. Peter Griffin designed the Libyan Machine Shop 1001, and imported machines from Spain and other European countries for that project.[66] Mohammed Farooq was a KRL official in charge of procurement and sales abroad.[67] Paul Griffin (son of Peter Griffin), operated Gulf Technical Industries, one of the main Dubai-based front companies. Urs Tinner, a Swiss national and long-time associate of A.Q. Khan, as well as his father Friedrich and his brother Marco, were involved in both the Iran and Libya enterprises. Heinz Mebus, an old college classmate, was involve in sales to Iran. Gotthard Lerch, another long-time associate, has been described as the “division manager for the Libya business” and Tahir’s “main contractor.” He was in particular in charge of the South African node.[68] He involved Gerhard Wisser (a German mechanical engineer) in the Libya operation, who in turned involved Daniel Geiges (a Swiss mechanical engineer) and Johan Meyer (a South African engineer).[69]

The main companies reportedly involved in centrifuges exports were: Khan Research Laboratories (Pakistan): ring magnets, aluminium and maraging steel, flow-forming and balancing equipment, vacuum pumps, non-corrosive pipes and valves, end-caps and baffles, power supply; Scomi Precision Engineering (Malaysia): aluminium and maraging steel, end-caps and baffles; SMB Computers (UAE): non-corrosive pipes and valves, end-caps and baffles, power supply; ETI Elektroteknik (Turkey): aluminium and maraging steel, power supply; and Trade Fin (South Africa): flow-forming and balancing equipment, vacuum pumps, non-corrosive pipes and valves.[70] Other companies involved included Bikar Mettale Asia (Singapore), Hanbando Balance Inc. (South Korea), Krisch Engineering (South Africa), CETEC (Switzerland), Traco (Switzerland), and EKA (Turkey).[71] Equipments for Libya were imported by the Tinner family from Spain (vacuum pumps, flow-forming machines), Italy (special furnaces), France, the United Kingdom and Taiwan (machine-tools), as well as Japan (a 3-D measuring tool).[72]

The story cannot be reduced to a mere “reversal of the flow.” Most of the imports network remained insulated from the exports. And the North Korean deal does not seem to have implicated the network: it was a State-to-State enterprise, which may have included a personal initiative by A.Q. Khan with support from military authorities. By contrast, Libya, which was by far the biggest known A.Q. Khan operation, was an ad hoc project which fully involved Khan’s associates, and was probably hidden from the political authorities.

But there were clear links between the imports and exports networks. Some of the components that A.Q. Khan exported were also components he needed for the national program; thus, starting in the mid-1980s, he reportedly began to order more components than necessary for the national program.[73] Some of the network’s customers, such as Iran, received “second-hand” centrifuges—those which were replaced by newer models for Pakistan’s national programs. Several key individuals involved in Pakistani exports were also involved in the imports. Mohammed Farooq, A.Q. Khan’s principal deputy, was reportedly in charge of overseas procurement for KRL.[74] Others were long-time associates, who he had met in the 1960s and 1970s. They included Peter Griffin (who was involved in early imports of inverters from the UK); Gotthard Lerch (who used to work at Leybold Heraeus, which was to become a key contractor of Pakistan); Otto Heilingbrunner (same); Henk Slebos (who studied with A.Q. Khan, used to work at Explosive Metal Works Holland and sold various equipment to Pakistan over the years); Friedrich Tinner (who used to work at Vacuum Apparate Technik, a firm who sold equipment to Pakistan in the 1970s); and Heinz Mebus (who was involved in the first centrifuge transfers to Iran in the mid-1980s). Other elements of commonality exist between the two networks. Tactics designed to fool Western exports controls were learned for imports and used for exports. States such as the UAE and Turkey were major platforms for both imports and exports. And the BCCI was, it seems, one of the conduits used (until its demise in 1991) for payments made to Pakistani officials.[75]

Thus the network was not a “Wal-Mart,” as IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei wrongly characterized it. Rather, it was an “Imports-Exports Enterprise.” From the initial import-oriented network under the direction of MA Khan, a separate, export-oriented branch developed under the direction of A.Q. Khan, starting in the mid-1980s. In the late 1990s, it became more decentralized as A.Q. Khan realized he was under surveillance. It became a “privatized subsidiary” of the imports network.

Also, the network did not export the whole range of Pakistani technology. It sold or gave know-how on uranium enrichment and weapons design, and centrifugation technology. Again, the “Wal-Mart” comparison goes too far.
IV. Learning from the Pakistani Experience

Two additional conclusions can be drawn from this brief survey for the future study and understanding of proliferation networks.

The first one is that we should not be surprised that the uncovering of A.Q. Khan’s activities did not kill the network. This is only logical since the exports was only one part of the Pakistani machinery, loosely affiliated with the rest or the network. Recent developments show that Pakistan has indeed continued to seek nuclear imports after 2003.[76] In August 2005, Asher Karni, an Israeli businessman, arrested in January 2004, was condemned in the United States to have exported or attempted to export, via South Africa and the UAE, 200 triggered spark gaps as well as high-tech oscilloscopes to Pakistan.[77] In November, Rainer Vollmerich, a German businessman, was condemned for having exported to Pakistan, until 2004, mechanical and electronic equipment with military nuclear use.[78] In May 2005, Swiss federal police stated it had precluded two attempts at exporting aluminium tubes of Russian origin to KRL.[79] In July, an European confidential report stated that Pakistan was still “shopping” for high-grade aluminium, ring magnets, and machine-tools that could be useful for its nuclear program. The document reportedly listed 20 Pakistani institutions involved in such imports.[80] Finally, in 2006, the Russian government revealed that Pakistan had been actively searching for nuclear-related technology in the country.[81] Some Pakistani officials have argued that Pakistani needs to continue buying abroad because of damage done to key installations by the October 2005 earthquake.[82] While this rationale may be overstated, it seems that Pakistan will continue to import foreign components as spare parts and and upgrades for the modernization of its facilities and weapons. The construction of a second heavy-water reactor at Khushab, which is currently underway, may also imply additional imports.

The second conclusion, and perhaps the most important one, is that the A.Q. Khan network is probably unique. Its efficiency can be explained by the fact that it was based on a State network. Creating a nuclear exports enterprise is easier than it was 20 or 30 years ago. For instance, as an observer puts it, “computers now can do the work that in the past only very sophisticated engineers could do. In the past, making the parts required extraordinary skill in hand-machining. Now poorer countries with weaker industrial bases can essentially download the software, plug it into a machine, and cut rare metal alloys as well as a Swiss craftsman could thirty years ago.”[83] But it is hardly conceivable that another Khan-like network could exist without being the offspring of a State machinery. In other words, the “next A.Q. Khan,” if there is one, will not be an isolated individual but somebody with access and experience drawn from a country’s national nuclear program. In sum, the “next A.Q. Khan” could only be, for instance, Iranian or North Korean.
About the Author

Along with being a Senior Research Fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), Dr. Tertrais is also a Lecturer in World Politics at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris. Dr. Tertrais graduated from the Institut d’études politiques de Paris in 1984. He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Law of the University of Paris (1985), and a Doctorate in Political Science of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (1994).

Between 1990 and 1993, he was the Director of the Civilian Affairs Committee, NATO Assembly, Brussels. In 1993, he joined the Délégation aux Affaires stratégiques (Policy Division) of the French Ministry of Defense as an analyst (European affairs). In 1995-1996, he was a Visiting Fellow at the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica. From October 1996 until September 2001, he was Special Assistant to the Director of Strategic Affairs at the French Ministry of Defense. His recent publications include Nuclear Policies in Europe (Oxford University Press, 1999) ; US Missile Defence : Strategically Sound, Politically Questionable (London : Center for European Reform, 2001) ; L’Asie nucléaire (Paris : Institut français de relations internationales, 2001). Dr. Tertrais specialties are: US strategy , nuclear issues, defense and military, policies, transatlantic relations and Asian security.

For more insights into contemporary international security issues, see our Strategic Insights home page.

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References

1. Herbert Krosney and Steve Weissman, The Islamic Bomb (New York: Times Books, 1981), 75.

2. Ibid., 81-83.

3. Usman Shabbir, “Remembering Unsung Heroes: Munir Ahmad Khan,” Defence Journal, May 2004.

4. Ian Cobain and Ewen MacAskill, “MI5 unmasks covert arms programmes,” The Guardian, 8 October 2005.

5. See Krosney and Weissman, Op. Cit.; and William Langewiesche, “The Wrath of Khan,” The Atlantic Monthly, November 2005.

6. This is the case for instance of Peter Griffin. See Blake Eskin, “Blueprints for Disaster,” The New Yorker, 7 August 2006.

7. Steve Coll, “The Atomic Emporium,” The New Yorker, 7 and 14 August 2006, 56.

8. Langewiesche, Op. Cit.

9. David Albright and Mark Hibbs, “Pakistan’s bomb: Out of the closet,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 48, no. 6, July-August 1992.

10. Joachim Krause, “German Nuclear Export Policy and the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons—Another Sonderweg?,” Nonproliferation Education Center, February 26, 2005.

11. Quoted in “Nuclear Exports to Pakistan Reported,” Der Spiegel, February 20, 1989.

12. Quoted in John Wilson, “Much Noise over Full Drums,” The Pioneer, February 4, 2004.

13. Frederick Lamy, Export controls violations and illicit trafficking by Swiss companies and individuals in the case of A.Q. Khan network, Geneva Center for Security Policy, August 19, 2004, 8.

14. Ibid., 9.

15. Ibid., 11.

16. Ibid., 10.

17. General Accounting Office, Nuclear Nonproliferation: Export Licensing Procedures for Dual-Use Items Need to Be Strenghtened, NSIAD-94-119, April 26, 1994.

18. Ibid., 25, 28.

19. Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, “Schooling Iran’s Atom Squad,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May-June 2004.

20. IAEA, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2006/15, February 27, 2006, 3.

21. John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Pakistanis Say Nuclear Scientists Aided Iran,” Washington Post, January 24, 2004; John Wilson, “Iran, Pakistan and Nukes,” Observer Research Foundation, 2005.

22. John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe,” Washington Post, February 3, 2004; Mubashir Zaidi, “Scientist Claimed Nuclear Equipment Was Old, Official Says,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2004.

23. Kathy Gannon, “Iran Sought Advice in Pakistan on Attack,” Associated Press, May 12, 2006.

24. MA Chaudhri, “Pakistan’s Nuclear History: Separating Myth from Reality,” Defence Journal, May 2006.

25. Kathy Gannon, “Explosive Secrets from Pakistan,” Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2004.

26. Matt Kelley, “Pakistan Threatened to Give Iran Nukes,” Associated Press, February 27, 2004; and Douglas Frantz, “Pakistan’s Role in Scientist’s Nuclear Trafficking Debated,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2005.

27. Frantz, Ibid.

28. David Rhode, “Pakistanis Question Official Ignorance of Atom Transfers,” New York Times, February 3, 2004; Lancaster and Khan, “Musharraf Named...,” Op. Cit.; David Armstrong, “Khan Man,” The New Republic, 9 November 2004.

29. Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 313.

30. See John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Pakistanis Say...,” Op. Cit.

31. Kenneth R. Timmerman, Countdown to Crisis. The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (New York: Crown Forum, 2005), 101-107.

32. IAEA, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran, GOV/2006/15, February 27, 2006, 5.

33. William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “New Worry Rises after Iran Claims Nuclear Steps,” New York Times, as published by the International Herald Tribune, April 17, 2006.

34. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., DPRK-Pakistan Ghauri Missile Cooperation, Federation of American Scientists, 21, 1998.

35. Bill Powell and Rim McGirk, “The Man Who Sold The Bomb,” Time, February 6, 2005.

36. David Armstrong, “Khan Man,” Op. Cit.; Lancaster and Khan, “Musharraf Named…,” Op. Cit.

37. “President’s Interview with The New York Times,” Website of the President of Pakistan, September 12, 2005.

38. Mubashir Zaidi, “Scientist Claimed Nuclear Equipment Was Old, Official Say,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 2004; Broad and Sanger, Op. Cit.

39. Christopher O. Clary, The A.Q. Khan Network: Causes and Implications, Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, December 2005, 62-71.

40. Strobe Talbott, Engaging India. Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004), 150-151.

41. Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 206.

42. Sharon A. Squassoni, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Trade Between North Korea and Pakistan, Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, March 11, 2004; Frantz, Op. Cit.

43. Clary, Op. Cit., 62-71.

44. “Memo # 78m, Subject: Proposal,” Iraqi Intelligence Document, October 6, 1990.

45. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “The A.Q. Khan Illicit Nuclear Trade Network and Implications for Nonproliferation Efforts,” Strategic Insights V, no. 6 (July 2006).

46. Wyn Q. Bowen, Libya and Nuclear Proliferation. Stepping Back from the Brink, Adelphi Paper no. 380 (New York: Routledge/International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006), 30-43.

47. IAEA, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, GOV/2004/12, February 20, 2004, 5.

48. David Sanger, “The Khan Network,” Conference on South Asia and the Nuclear Future, Stanford University, June 4-5, 2004; Edward Harris, “Khan Visited Uranium-rich African Nations,” Associated Press, April 19, 2004.

49. Clary, Op. Cit., 89.

50. Peter Lavoy and Feroz Hassan Khan, “Rogue or Responsible Nuclear Power? Making Sense of Pakistan’s Nuclear Practices,” Strategic Insights III, no. 2 (February 2004).

51. John Wilson, “Notes from the Nuclear Underground,” The Pioneer, June 9, 2006.

52. Sanger, “The Khan Network,” Op. Cit.

53. Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror (New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2005), 231.

54. Frantz, Op. Cit.; William Langewiesche, “The Point of No Return,” The Atlantic Monthly, January-February 2006.

55. Interview on Nuclear Jihad, Discovery Times (TV channel), April 17, 2006.

56. These events followed the restructuration of the NCA announced in February 2000. See “Dr. Qadeer Khan Bids Farewell to KRL,” Dawn, April 2, 2001.

57. NTI Global Security Newswire, “Pakistan Military Distances Itself From Khan,” July 10, 2006.

58. Mushahid Hussain, “Media Off Target with Pakistan Nuclear Scare,” Asia Times, November 7, 2001.

59. Chaudhri, Op. Cit.

60. Shahid ur-Rehman, Long Road to Chagai (Islamabad: Print Wise Publications), 53; S. Shabbir Hussain and Mujahid Kamran, Dr. A. Q. Khan on Science and Education (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1997), 212.

61. Usman Shabbir, “Remembering Unsung Heroes: Munir Ahmad Khan,” Defence Journal, May 2004; Chaudhri, Op. Cit.

62. Clary, Op. Cit., 44.

63. Lancaster and Khan, “Musharraf Named…,” Op. Cit.

64. Herbert Krosney and Steve Weissman, The Islamic Bomb (New York: Times Books, 1981), 65.

65. David Albright, “A.Q. Khan Network: The Case Is Not Closed,” Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, May 25, 2006.

66. Polis Dijara Malaysia, Press Release by Inspector General of Police In Relation to Investigation on the Alleged Production of Components for Libya’s Uranium Enrichment Program, February 20, 2004.

67. Simon Henderson, “Nuclear Spinning: The Iran-Pakistan Link,” National Review Online, December 11, 2003; John Lancaster and Kamran Khan, “Pakistanis Say...,” Op. Cit..

68. Details on the South Africa operation are contained in High Court of Transvaal, The State vs. 1. Daniel Geiges 2. Gerhard Wisser (undated document, 2006).

69. Juergen Dahlkamp, Georg Mascolo, and Holger Stark, “Network of Death on Trial,” Der Spiegel, March 13, 2006.

70. Leonard S. Spector, Nilsu Goren, and Sammy Salama of the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies, “Special Report: The A.Q. Khan Network: Crime… And Punishment?,” WMD Insights, no. 3 (March 2006).

71. Ibid.

72. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Uncovering the Nuclear Black Market: Working Toward Closing Gaps in the International Nonproliferation Regime, Institute for Science and International Security, July 2, 2004; Polis Dijara Malaysia, Op. Cit.; “Nuke Trail Traced to M’sia, Pakistan, Libya,” Korea Herald, February 16, 2006.

73. William J. Broad, David E. Sanger, and Raymond Bonner, “A Tale of Nuclear Proliferation,” New York Times, February 12, 2004.

74. See Lancaster and Khan, “Pakistanis Say…,” Op. Cit.

75. Stephen Fidler and Farhan Bokhari, “Pakistan investigates BCCI role in sale of nuclear know-how,” Financial Times, February 4, 2004.

76. Louis Charbonneau, “Pakistan Reviving Nuclear Black Market, Experts Say,” Reuters, March 15, 2005.

77. Associated Press, “Israeli Businessman Sentenced in Plot to Ship Nuclear Detonation Devices,” Associated Press, August 6, 2005.

78. Agence France Presse, “German businessman accused of passing nuclear material to Pakistan,” Agence France Presse, September 25, 2005.

79. Rapport sur la sécurité intérieure de la Suisse, Office fédéral de la Police, Berne, May 2005, 47-48.

80. Leonard Weiss, “Testimony on the A.Q. Khan Network,” Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, May 25, 2006.

81. “Pak Had Tried to Illegally Acquire Russian Missile, Nuke Ttech,” The Hindustan Times, July 16, 2006.

82. Andrew Koch, “AQ Khan Network: Case Closed?” Testimony to the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, May 25, 2006.

83. “Blueprints for Disaster,” Op. Cit.

[nw_arizona_granny]

2003 report:

http://www.iranwatch.org/privateviews/WINEP/perspex-winep-iranpakistanlink.htm

NUCLEAR SPINNING: THE IRAN-PAKISTAN LINK
BY SIMON HENDERSON

THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY

December 11, 2003

Forget, for the moment, Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction — or lack thereof. Consider instead the other WMD conundrum: Iran. Events in Pakistan, where two nuclear scientists were arrested last week, suggest the whole issue is about to blow. (Figuratively, that is.)

Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, declared, implausibly, that there was no evidence of Iran’s trying to build an atomic bomb. Washington was gob-smacked. As with the proverbial duck, Iran’s efforts looked like a nuclear-weapons program and sounded like a nuclear-weapons program. The trouble was the lack of proof sufficient to convince the pedants of the IAEA (which, incidentally, has never by itself discovered a clandestine nuclear-weapons program).

The Pakistani link is crucial to showing Iran’s true motives. Pakistan, which tested two nuclear bombs in 1998, used centrifuges to make “highly” enriched (i.e., bomb-grade) uranium. Iran also has centrifuges. The IAEA discovered traces of highly enriched uranium on some of them. Tehran’s reported explanation? “They came like that.” From where? “We bought the equipment from a middleman.”

The gossip is that Pakistan sold, directly or indirectly, the centrifuge equipment to Iran. The technology involves aluminum tubes — confusingly, the same technology that Saddam Hussein was reported to be interested in, although, to the glee of the war doubters, aluminum tubes found in Iraq so far have proved to be nothing more dangerous than casings for battlefield rockets. Aluminum tubes for centrifuges are decidedly “old-tech” but, in the absence of an alternative, can do the job, given enough time.

Officially, Pakistan denies it transferred centrifuge technology to Iran. But that still leaves open the possibility that Pakistani scientists did a private deal with Tehran, for money or mischief. The suspect in the frame? Dr. Abdul Qader Khan, who retired nearly three years ago as head of the eponymous Khan Research Laboratory (KRL). But despite Khan’s background, there is evidence that he is being set up and is, on this issue, innocent.

The current state of the friendship between the U.S. and Pakistan is complicated at best, as American soldiers being shot at from Pakistani positions along the border with Afghanistan will testify. Osama bin Laden was reportedly sighted in the remote north-Pakistani town of Chitral recently. A more likely lair is somewhere in the vast, sprawling townships that make up Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city on the Arabian Sea coast. President Musharraf, who retains the army uniform he was wearing when a 1999 coup brought him to power, juggles these tensions with Washington. Last month he was reported in the Los Angeles Times as saying that a trip by Khan to Iran had been about short-range missiles rather than nuclear issues. And, earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times quoted former Iranian diplomats as saying that Khan made several trips to Iran, beginning in 1987, and was given a villa on the Caspian Sea coast in return for his assistance.

This last report caught my eye as I once asked Khan whether he had ever been to Iran. I can remember his reply clearly: “Never.” I have spoken with Khan or exchanged letters with him frequently over the years. He is often evasive but I think I can tell when he is telling a diplomatic lie. For the rest of the time, I think he is straightforward with me. I understand he stands by his claim of never having visited Iran.

The two nuclear scientists arrested last week were departmental directors at KRL. Dr. Mohammed Farooq and Dr. Yassin Chowhan were picked up at 10 P.M. on the night of December 1. They were taken away by Pakistani intelligence agents, accompanied, it is alleged, by English-speaking men, apparently CIA officers. Their homes in Rawalpindi, the city which merges into the capital, Islamabad, are reportedly under surveillance.

Dr. Farooq was in charge of the section at KRL that dealt with ties to foreign suppliers and customers for KRL products. KRL also makes a range of battlefield products for the Pakistani army, such as a version of a Chinese handheld antiaircraft missile. (It also makes the Pakistani version of the North Korean nuclear-capable Nodong missile.) Dr. Chowhan ran one of the assembly lines at KRL.

The assumption is that the two men will be held until they confess to assisting Dr. Khan in supplying centrifuges to Iran. Dr. Khan, now retired, is nominally an adviser to President Musharraf, but there is little evidence to show that his advice is sought very often. In the bitchy world of Pakistani politics, there is resentment that Dr. Khan is popularly considered “the father of the Islamic bomb.”

So if Dr. Khan or some other Pakistani scientist did not supply centrifuge technology to Iran, who did? Suspicion falls on a Sri Lankan merchant formally based in Dubai, a member of his country’s Muslim minority who has now returned home. The businessman acted as a conduit for Pakistan’s orders of components and manufacturing equipment. Using that knowledge, he put in for extra orders of equipment and arranged a side deal with Iran. This scenario dates the start of Iran’s centrifuge project to 1979, eight years earlier than the IAEA’s assessment. Iran has refused to tell the IAEA the identity of this middleman.

But what about the traces of highly enriched uranium the IAEA found on the equipment in Iran? KRL apparently still uses some of its aluminum centrifuges alongside the later and more efficient ones made out of special steel. Others have been “scrapped and crushed.” None has been exported. Perhaps Iran has been more successful at enrichment than it wants to admit.

Washington’s motives are reasonably clear, even if not fully explained in public. Relations with Pakistan are very important. Iran’s nuclear ambitions must be curtailed. Presumably if Dr. Khan is blamed, President Musharraf is forced, through embarrassment, into more cooperation with the U.S. But Iran’s nuclear progress might be understated, and activities of an unscrupulous middleman might escape closer inspection. As with centrifuges themselves, there is a lot of spin.

Simon Henderson is an energy consultant and a London-based associate of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which recently published his The New Pillar: Conservative Arab Gulf States and US Strategy. He wrote this commentary for the National Review.

[nw_arizona_granny]

[2006 report to the Gov.]

http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/archives/109/27811.pdf

“The A.Q. Khan network: Case closed?”

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,405847-2,00.html

Above link, has a link to related articles and Part 1.....

DER SPIEGEL 11/2006 - March 13, 2006
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,405847,00.html
A.Q. KHAN’S NUCLEAR MAFIA
Network of Death on Trial

By Juergen Dahlkamp, Georg Mascolo and Holger Stark

The world’s first-ever court case against a presumed member of Khan’s global nuclear weapons bazaar is beginning on Friday. The German defendant may have helped Libya acquire nuclear weapons technology. Iran is implicated too.

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://www.wmdinsights.com/I3/G1_SR_AQK_Network.htm

SPECIAL REPORT:
THE A.Q. KHAN NETWORK: CRIME… AND PUNISHMENT?
March 2006 Issue

This article is based on research conducted by Sammy Salama and Nilsu Goren at the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

In the two years since the operations of the nuclear smuggling network led by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan were publicly revealed, law enforcement agencies around the globe have pursued investigations and prosecutions against more than thirty individuals involved in the illicit trafficking effort. Results have varied widely, with a seven-year prison term meted out by a German court being the most severe punishment imposed to date. Most alleged participants in the enterprise, however, have suffered limited penalties, if any, for their efforts to provide assistance to nuclear weapon programs in Pakistan, Iran, Libya, and North Korea.

Secret Imports, Then Exports
The network was built upon a set of contacts and clandestine smuggling operations that Khan had developed since 1976, after he returned to Pakistan from the Netherlands. With him, he brought plans for uranium centrifuges used at a Dutch enrichment facility at Almelo and lists of component suppliers for that installation. PakistanÂ’s nuclear weapons production capability is based on this Dutch centrifuge technology. [1]

By 1987, Khan, relying on equipment and materials provided by his “incoming” nuclear smuggling network, had succeeded in producing highly enriched uranium for the Pakistani nuclear weapon program and began to exploit the same channels to establish an “outgoing” network to support nuclear weapon programs elsewhere. Equipment provided by the network, apparently beginning with shipments to Iran in 1987, included designs for uranium enrichment centrifuges; obsolete equipment from Pakistan’s own enrichment program; components for the manufacture of large numbers of centrifuges; and the design of a nuclear weapon (purportedly provided to Pakistan by China), along with detailed notations on how to machine and assemble its parts. [2] Uranium enrichment centrifuges can be used to produce low-enriched uranium for nuclear power plant fuel, but can also be used to produce highly enriched uranium suitable for use in nuclear weapons.

Although many details remain unclear, Khan appears to have gradually modified the range of matriel provided in order to suit the needs of his customers. According to published sources, Khan sold Iran a basic package of centrifuge blueprints and sample pieces of obsolete equipment from the Pakistani program, along with the nuclear weapon design. He then provided at least comparable assistance to North Korea, probably beginning sometime in the mid- to late-1990s. In 2000 or shortly thereafter, he also offered Libya a nearly complete uranium enrichment plant, fabricated abroad, together with the weapon design. (The scale of the assistance to Libya was exposed with the September 2003 detaining in Italy of the BCC China, en route to Libya, which carried much of this equipment.) Meanwhile, Khan continued to utilize the incoming operations of his smuggling effort to maintain and expand Pakistan’s own enrichment capabilities.

Geographic Scope
Over time, Khan also expanded his network geographically. During the initial incoming phase, its hub was at KhanÂ’s headquarters near Islamabad, with the major spokes radiating to Western European equipment producers through trusted European go-betweens, including those in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK. Turkey and a number of other locales served as intermediate transshipping points. As the outgoing network grew, the hub appears to have divided, with important financing and organizational operations established in Dubai. From here, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman, arranged acquisitions for and transfers to KhanÂ’s new customers. Pre-existing connections to Europe were maintained, those in Turkey were expanded, and new spokes were added to South Africa and Malaysia, where, as in Turkey, Khan’s intermediaries arranged for certain components to be manufactured. South Africa and Turkey also served as transshipment points for items acquired from the United States. In East Asia, firms in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore contributed high-tech equipment to the enterprise, in some cases without knowing its ultimate purpose or destination.

Alleged Perpetrators and Law Enforcement Results
Khan’s efforts to jump-start nuclear weapon programs in three new states involved numerous actors in a wide range of countries.

Pakistan
At the core of Khan’s dealings with Iran, North Korea, and Libya was the transfer of technology that comprised the essence of PakistanÂ’s nuclear deterrent capability, presumably some of that countryÂ’s most prized and closely guarded state secrets. Several levels of officials in the Pakistani nuclear and military hierarchy have been investigated by Pakistani authorities. No prosecutions are known to have been brought, but a number of individuals, some of whom were held for “debriefings” for as long as six months, remain under house arrest and one appears to be in the indefinite custody of Pakistani authorities.

A.Q. Khan
Khan is believed to be under house arrest in Islamabad, following his detailed disclosures in early 2004 to Pakistani authorities regarding his activities, his public apology on February 4 of that year, and his pardon immediately afterwards by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Khan’s immediate subordinates at the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL)
At least 15 officials linked to KRL were questioned by Pakistani authorities in early 2004. Most were released in several weeks or less, but three were held in custody for six months and then placed under house arrest, Maj. (ret.) Islam al-Haq (Khan’s personal staff officer), Nazeer Ahmed (Director-General of Science and Technology at KRL), and Brig. General (ret.) Sajawal Khan Malik (head of security at KRL). Only one KRL official, Mohammed Farooq, A.Q. KhanÂ’s principal deputy, is thought to remain in detention at this time. [3]

Senior members of the Pakistan military
Three former Chiefs of Army Staff (COAS), Mirza Aslam Beg (COAS from August 1988 to August 1991), Abdul Wahid Kakar (COAS from January 1993-January 1996) and Jehangir Karamat (COAS from January 1996 to October 1998), have been accused in various reports of being involved in the affair, as either knowledgeable of and acquiescing in Khan’s activities, or actively facilitating them. [4] Beg and Karamat were reportedly questioned by Pakistani authorities but were not charged with any wrong-doing. Karamat is currently PakistanÂ’s ambassador to the United States. President Pervez Musharraf, who has served as COAS since October 1998, is also alleged to have been knowledgeable about the Khan network, but denies this was the case. [5]

Malaysia
This was the site of SCOPE, a subsidiary of the SCOMI Group BHD, one of the Khan network’s off-shore machining and manufacturing shops, which produced an array of aluminum components for the Libyan centrifuge enrichment program, including casings, end-caps, and baffles. The unit was set up by Tahir, but owned by a company controlled by Kamaluddin Abdullah, son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. [6] Presumably a number of other business persons and technicians would have been involved in the effort.

Buhary Syed Abu Tahir
After being cleared of violating Malaysian criminal law, Tahir was arrested on May 28, 2004, under Malaysia’s internal security law, and remains in detention. [7]

Kamaluddin Abdullah, and other officers/employees of SCOPE
No charges are known to have been filed against these individuals.

Western Europe
At least nine individuals from Western European states have been identified in press accounts or official sources as assisting in illicit procurement activities in support of A.Q. Khan’s efforts to assist Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and/or nuclear programs elsewhere. Several of these individuals participated by assisting manufacturing and machining operations in Malaysia, South Africa, or Turkey relevant to the production of uranium enrichment equipment. The group includes three Swiss citizens, Friederich Tinner and his sons Urs and Marco; a Dutch citizen, Henk Slebos; a citizen of unidentified nationality, Zoran Filipovic; a British citizen, Abu Siddiqui; and German citizens Gotthard Lerch, Rainer Vollmerich, and Heinz Mebus (deceased). The Tinners, personnally and through companies they owned or operated in Europe (including CETEC and Traco), are alleged to have provided technical support in setting up and operating production lines for SCOPE in Malaysia. Marco Tinner is alleged to have used Turkish firms to manufacture centrifuge parts, which were then exported to SCOPE for further modification. Henk Slebos is reported to have sent dual-use equipment to Pakistan and to be part owner of ETI Elektroteknik, a Turkish firm that also allegedly supported the Khan network (see below). Zoran Filipovic is said to have worked with Slebos, helping to smuggle nuclear relevant dual-use goods out of the Netherlands. Abu Siddiqui did the same from England. Gotthard Lerch is reported to have assisted Libya in developing an advanced machine shop to support its planned uranium enrichment activities and to have arranged for the production of centrifuge parts in South Africa for the Libyan program. (Another individual, Peter Griffin, is said to have supported the outfitting of the Libyan machine shop; he successfully sued the Guardian (London) for libel for falsely alleging that Malaysian authorities found him guilty of providing assistance to Libya’s nuclear program. His son Paul Griffin is discussed below.) Rainer Vollmerich procured items related to uranium enrichment for nuclear facilities in Pakistan.

Friederich Tinner
In custody of Swiss authorities. [8]

Urs Tinner
In custody of Swiss authorities, since November 2005, awaiting trial. [9]

Marco Tinner
In custody of Swiss authorities; under investigation in Turkey. [10]

Henk Slebos
Convicted in the Netherlands on charges related to smuggling nuclear components to Pakistan. Received 12 month sentence, (8 months suspended, 4 months served); ordered to personally pay a fine of 100,000 euros (US$120,000). [11]

Zoran Filipovic
Convicted in the Netherlands of exporting controlled items to Pakistan. Sentenced to 180 days of community service and fine of 5,000 euro. [12]

Abu Siddiqui
Convicted in the UK of illegally evading British export laws by shipping nuclear dual-use items to Khan’s lab in Pakistan. Received a 12-month suspended sentence and a £6,000 fine. [13]

Gotthard Lerch
Charged with violating German export laws; arrested in November 2005, but not currently in custody. [14]

Rainer Vollmerich
Convicted of illegally procuring and exporting controlled nuclear materials to Pakistan. Sentenced to prison term of 7 years and three months. [15]

Investigations in France and Spain
According to two leading U.S. experts on the Khan affair, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, investigations are also being pursued in France and Spain. None has resulted in arrests or prosecutions as of this writing. It has not been possible to obtain additional details of these developments.

South Africa
Johan Meyer, founder of Trade Fin Engineering, and Gerhard Wisser, owner of Kirsch Engineering, are alleged to have supported the Khan enterprise along two tracks, reportedly working with Tahir. First, they received and transshipped sensitive goods needed for Libya’s uranium enrichment program and, second, engaged in the manufacture of components for that program, in particular, vacuum pumps and equipment for handling uranium in gaseous form.

Johan Meyer
South African authorities indicted Meyer, but dismissed the charges against him after he agreed to testify against Wisser. [16]

Gerhard Wisser (and his employee Daniel Geiges)
Awaiting trial in Pretoria. [17]

Turkey
Khan’s network operated in Turkey along the same tracks as in South Africa, with several key firms supporting Khan’s sale of a uranium enrichment plant to Libya by receiving and transshipping dual-use goods and by manufacturing components needed in the gas centrifuge uranium enrichment process, in particular electronic components. The key individuals and firms alleged to be involved are Gunes Cire (sometimes, spelled Gunas Jireh), director of ETI Elektroteknik, and Selim Alguadis, President of EKA, also a firm specializing in electronics, as well as several of Alguadis’s business partners.

Gunes Cire
Arrested and detained in Turkey. Died in 2004. [18]

Selim Alguadis
Under investigation by Turkish authorities; potential penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment.

Zubeyir Baybars Cayci, Ertugrul Sonmez
Turkish authorities said to be seeking indictments against these individuals who are partners of Alguadis; potential penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment. [19]

Dubai
Tahir worked out of Dubai, where he was Managing Director of SMB Group, and Freiderich Tinner, Peter Griffin, and others are alleged to have used this locale extensively as a transshipment point to disguise the ultimate destination of sensitive equipment. Griffin’s son, Paul, managed the Dubai-based company Gulf Technical Industries (GTI), reported to be a frequently used cut-out for the network. [20] The co-director of GTI, Ahmad Hassan Rashid Ahmad al Abbar, was the local sponsor of the company. [21] It does not appear that authorities in Dubai are pursuing charges against any individuals associated with the Khan network.

Paul Griffin
Not known to be currently the subject of investigation; has denied allegations of wrong-doing.

Ahmad Hassan Rashid Ahmad al Abbar
Not known to be the subject of investigation.

Singapore
Some of the materials used by SCOPE to manufacture 300 metric tons of aluminum tubing were purchased from Bikar Metalle Asia, a Singapore subsidiary of the German company Bikar Metalle. This tubing was sent through Dubai. There is no indication that Bikar Metalle Asia was aware of the purpose to which the material was to be used. [22]

Bikar Metalle Asia
Management was not prosecuted; found not to have committed a crime or to have hidden its involvement. [23]

South Korea
The Khan network acquired specialized balancing machines from South Korea. The manufacturer of the machines, Hanbando, Inc., has not been accused of wrong-doing, but the exporting company, known in court records only as “D” was the subject of law enforcement efforts.

“D” Corporation
Prosecuted in late 2004 and acquitted by a South Korean court because of lack of evidence of intent to break South Korean export control laws. Prosecuted for a second violation and acquitted on the same grounds. South Korean Ministry of Commerce and Industry, however, imposed a one-year ban on import and export activities by the organization. [24]

Japan
Specialized Japanese three-dimensional measuring machines, needed to build uranium enrichment centrifuges with the necessary precision, were found by the IAEA in Libya during inspections as that country dismantled its nuclear weapons program. On February 13, 2006, Japanese authorities raided the Mitutoyo Corp., outside Tokyo, manufacturer of the machines, which were shipped to Tripoli via Dubai by Scomi Precision Engineering. [25]

Mitutoyo Corp.
Under investigation.

Patterns of Punishment
With a number of investigations and prosecutions still pending and others possibly in the planning stage, it is premature to draw firm conclusions regarding the international response to A.Q. Khan’s illicit nuclear trafficking. Nonetheless, certain patterns appear to be emerging.

First, it appears that political realities in Pakistan, Malaysia, and, possibly Dubai have shaped
decisions regarding which actors to pursue and how to punish them. Even in these settings, however, penalties of some severity have been meted out. A.Q. Khan is under indefinite house arrest, disgraced, deprived of his ability to speak publicly, and deprived of enjoyment of the fortune he built from his crimes. His principal deputies, Mohammed Farooq and B.S.A. Tahir, are in custody, indefinitely, without the benefit of trial. Three Khan KRL subordinates were held for “debriefings” that lasted six months and then placed under house arrest. However, other figures in these countries, some of whom may have played important roles in the Khan enterprise, have avoided prosecution and penalties of any kind.

Second, in Western Europe, prosecutions have had uneven success. Rainer Vollmerich’s seven-year prison sentence imposed by a German court is substantial, but the light punishments meted out in the Netherlands to Henk Slebos and Zoran Filipovic seem unlikely to serve as a deterrent to future export control violations. It remains to be seen how South African, Swiss, and Turkish courts will deal with individuals facing charges for nuclear export control violations in those countries.

As in combating international terrorism, it is likely that in seeking to thwart A.Q. Khan’s activities, interested governments have confronted difficult choices between pursuing intelligence gathering opportunities and bringing individuals to justice. Former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, for example, has stated that in 1975 and 1986, the CIA requested that Dutch authorities not detain A.Q. Khan so that his activities could be monitored and other elements of this network, and their customers, identified. [26] Similarly, the presence of Dutch intelligence officers at the search of the offices of Henk Slebos is said to have tainted his prosecution and led to a reduced sentence. [27] In addition, the need to protect intelligence-gathering sources and methods can preclude the use of certain evidence in criminal proceedings, increasing challenges for prosecutors.

Finally, interested governments have yet to take action against freight forwarders, financial institutions, and other facilitators of Khan’s nuclear smuggling operations. [28] Many such parties were likely innocent of any knowledge of the transactions they were assisting, but others may have been fully cognizant of the role they were playing and deserve to be pursued by the appropriate authorities.

Despite the on-going efforts to roll up the A.Q. Khan network, smuggling in support of nuclear weapon programs continues. Iran may well have developed its own network independent of Khan – and Pakistan, itself, can be expected to continue to import sensitive goods for its nuclear deterrent. [29] [30] Aggressive pursuit and prosecution of wrong-doers and more substantial penalties for those convicted may help to deter future smuggling operations, but the erratic record to date, with its strong tilt towards leniency, suggests that much remains to be done to achieve such results.

Leonard S. Spector, Nilsu Goren, Sammy Salama – Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies

SOURCES:
[1] For overviews of the Khan network, see, e.g., David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, “Unraveling the A. Q. Khan and Future Proliferation Networks,” Washington Quarterly (Spring 2005), p. 111-128; Sammy Salama and Lydia Hansell, “Companies Reported to Have Sold or Attempted to Sell Libya Gas Centrifuge Components,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, March 2005, http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_60a.html; [View Article] “Press Release by Inspector General of Police in Relation to Investigation on the Alleged Production of Components for Libya’s Uranium Enrichment Programme,” Polis Diraja Malaysia, February 20, 2004, http://www.rmp.gov.my/rmp03/040220scomi_eng.htm. [View Article]
[2] U.S. Embassy China, “Remarks By the Vice President At Fudan University, Followed By Student Body Q&A, Fudan University, Shanghai, China,” April 15, 2004,
http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/shanghai/temp/0415vpfudan.htm. [View Article] On the origin of the nuclear weapon design provided by Khan, see Joby Warrick and Peter Slevin, “Libyan Arms Designs Traced Back to China,” Washington Post, February 15, 2004,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42692-2004Feb14?language=printer. [View Article]
[3] “Arbitrary Arrest of Pakistani Officials of the Nuclear Research Laboratory in Kahuta,” February 3, 2004, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa330032004. [View Article]
[4] “Musharraf Named in Nuclear Probe,” Washington Post, February 3, 2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6884-2004Feb2?language=printer. [View Article] Beg has denied allegations that he proposed to transfer nuclear weapons technology to Iran. See: “Beg Reveals Decision On Non-Proliferation,” Dawn, January 25, 2004, http://www.dawn.com/2004/01/26/top2.htm. [View Article]
[5] It is possible that the most senior officials of Pakistan’s government were also knowledgeable about Khan’s activities. Benazir Bhutto, who served as Prime Minister from December 1988 to October 1990 and from October 1993 to November 1996, is believed to have traveled to North Korea in December 1993 to pursue negotiations on Pakistan’s acquisition of the Ghauri missile. “Pakistan Helped North Korea Make Bomb,” Guardian, October 19, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,815196,00.html. [View Article] It has been suggested that part of the deal included Pakistani support for the North Korean uranium enrichment program, although Ms. Bhutto has denied the charge, stating that Pakistan paid for the missiles in cash. Ibid. No action in conjunction with the Khan affair has been taken against Bhutto or against Nawaz Sharif, who served as prime minister from November 1990 to October 1993 and from February 1997 to October 1999.
[6] “Police: Khan Sold Iran Nuke Equipment for $3M”, Fox News, February 20, 2004, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111980,00.html. [View Article]
[7] “Malaysia Arrests Alleged Black Market Nuclear Agent,” Taipei Times, May 30, 2004, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/30/2003157524; [View Article] “Malaysia Arrests Senior Figure: Sri Lankan Tied to Pakistani Khan’s Network,” May 28, 2004, Nuclear Policy Research Institute website, http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/index.cfm?Page=Article&ID=1619. [View Article]
[8] Personal communication, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, February 28, 2006; see also “Swiss Engineer in Libya Nuclear Probe to be Extradited from Germany,” Swiss Info in English, May 13, 2005; FBIS document EUP20050513950109.
[9] T. Scheuer and M. Wisniewski, “US Sting Said to be Likely Cause for German Pumps at WMD Sites in Libya, Iran,” Munich in Focus, November 21, 2005; FBIS document EUP20051128085002.
[10] Personal communication, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, February 28, 2006; “Turkey a Transit Country in Smuggling Nuclear Parts into Libya,” Ankara Turkish Press in English, Dec 08, 2005; FBIS document GMP20051212025001.
[11] “Disclosure of Illicit Supply Networks Expose Weaknesses in European Export Control Systems,” International Export Control Observer 3, December 2005/January 2006, p.14-18.
[12] Ibid.
[13] “Western Intelligence Agencies Missed Link to A.Q. Khan’s Nuclear Proliferation Network,” June 02, 2004, http://www.publicedcenter.org/stories/siddiqui/. [View Article]
[14] “Old Engineer Accused of Helping Libyan Nuclear Program,” Pravda.ru, December 16, 2005, http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/12/16/70009.html; [View Article] David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, Institute for Science and International Security, February 28, 2006.
[15] “Disclosure of Illicit Supply Networks Expose Weaknesses in European Export Control Systems,” op. cit.
[16] “South Africa Seizes Uranium Enrichment Materials,” September 8, 2004, http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2004nn/0409nn/040908nn.htm. [View Article]
[17] “RSA: Court Resets Trial of Two Men Accused of Nuclear Proliferation to Feb 2006,” Johannesburg SAPA, October 4, 2004; FBIS document AFP20051004505001.
[18] “Nukleer Kacakcilikla Suclanan Iki Turk” [Two Turks Alleged to Nuclear Trafficking], Sabah in Turkish, January 27, 2006, [www.sabah.com.tr]. See also: “Eti Elektroteknik A.S. History,” http://www.cire.com.tr/en/en-hak_tarihce.htm. [View Article]
[19] “Yedi nukleer silahlik malzeme satmslar” [They have sold materials enough for 7 nuclear weapons], Milliyet in Turkish, December 08, 2005, [http://www.milliyet.com.tr].
[20] “Businessman Under Scrutiny 25 Years Ago After Ordering Unusual Supplies,” Guardian, March 05, 2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/freedom/Story/0,,1162669,00.html. [View Article]
[21] Ibid.
[22] See Source [1].
[23] “Daily: German Firms Unwittingly Involved in Nuclear Deals With Libya, Pakistan,” FBIS document EUP20040325000341; David Crawford and Steve Stecklow, “How A Nuclear Ring Skirted Export Laws,” Asian Wall Street Journal, http://www.ipweb.jp/news/frame_news.php?nno=2004032221310011. [View Article]
[24] Confidential interviews, February 2006.
[25] Hiroko Tabuchi, “Japanese Firm Raided in Nuclear Probe,” ABC News International, February 13, 2006, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1611490&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312. [View Article]
[26] “CIA Asked Us to Let Nuclear Spy Go, Ruud Lubbers Claims,” ANP (Netherlands National News Agency), August 9, 2005, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050809-khan-cia.htm. [View Article]
[27] “Disclosure of Illicit Supply Networks Expose Weaknesses in European Export Control Systems,” op. cit.
[28] One financial entity is known to have come to the attention of investigators for its possible role in financing illegal nuclear transactions, the Bank of Credit and Commerce, International (BCCI). See “The BCCI Affair: Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations U.S. Senate” by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown, December 1992, Appendix “Matters for Further Investigation.” http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/. [View Article] BCCI has since gone out of business after being banned in seven countries.
[29] See story in this issue of WMD Insights on the smuggling of sensitive dual-use goods through Sudan.
[30] “Banned N-tech Went to Pakistan, India: US”, The Nation, April 10, 2005,
http://nation.com.pk/daily/apr-2005/10/index5.php. [View Article] See also:“Pakistani Charged With Export of Devices With Nuclear Uses,”Washington Post, April 9, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38757-2005Apr8?language=printer. [View Article]

[nw_arizona_granny]

[I am getting too tired to check these, if they are as good as the Khan report, they should be checked out...granny]

http://www.wmdinsights.com/index.htm

This website presents a monthly publication intended to provide U.S. Government decision-makers, action officers, and analysts with timely and noteworthy unclassified information on international attitudes towards weapons of mass destruction and efforts to curb their proliferation. This product seeks to combine the skills and capabilities of subject matter specialists with those of foreign language experts to gain insights into issues that are shaping the proliferation landscape. Our goal is to assist our readers in planning for today’s issues and those that may be just over the horizon.

CDR Chris Bidwell
DTRA Program Manager

Leonard S. Spector Editor-in-Chief
Deputy Director (Washington, DC) Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies

[nw_arizona_granny]

[2004]

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/southasia/nuclear_black_market.html

Uncovering the Nuclear Black Market: Working Toward
Closing Gaps in the International Nonproliferation Regime
By David Albright and Corey Hinderstein
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)

Prepared for the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (INMM)45th Annual Meeting
Orlando, FL

July 2, 2004

In February 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, admitted that he had transferred sensitive nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Dr. Khan’s statement was a significant breakthrough for international efforts to uncover a secret network involved in illegal trading of nuclear technology. His confession opened the door for US, IAEA, and other investigators to delve far deeper into which individuals, companies, countries, and specific technologies were involved in such sales. The network of sellers, middlemen, and manufacturers is very large, and it will take time uncover and break up the whole system. It is important to expose the full extent of the network so that it cannot continue on. In addition, a complete understanding of the way in which proliferators bought and sold equipment and information is vital to assessing flaws in current nonproliferation efforts, including safeguards and export controls. Such knowledge can lead to recommendations on how to improve the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
Introduction

During the 1990s, Libya set out secretly to acquire a gas centrifuge plant and all the associated equipment and materials. Libya sought a large centrifuge plant, sufficient to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to make roughly 10 nuclear weapons each year.

Libyan nuclear officials had little trouble connecting with a shady, illicit international procurement network. This network was largely invisible to the world’s leading intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and well-acquainted with ways to evade controls established by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and national export laws. This black market network had already supplied Iran with gas centrifuge components and designs. The far-flung network emerged from Pakistan’s multi-decade clandestine effort to acquire nuclear weapons by illegally shopping the world for key nuclear and nuclear-related items.

This network is commonly called the “Khan” network, although this name may be misleading by focusing too much on the role of one individual, namely Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s gas centrifuge program. The network was international and relatively non-hierarchical. The key technology holders and several of its leaders were in Pakistan, including Khan. But many other leaders were spread throughout the world and located in Europe, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, South Africa, and Malaysia. The network also depended on a variety of unwitting manufacturing companies and suppliers on many continents.

The network succeeded in operating in secret for several years before it was exposed through a series of actions by the United States, Britain, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). During the IAEA’s inspections in Iran during 2003, strong evidence emerged that Pakistani scientists and intermediaries were important clandestine suppliers of centrifuge designs and components to Iran’s secret gas centrifuge program.

The secret U.S. intelligence community penetration of at least one part of the Khan network led to the dramatic seizure in October 2003 of several containers of parts bound for Libya’s secret centrifuge program on the ship BBC China. After Libya renounced nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in December 2003, U.S., British, and IAEA investigations learned many details about the activities of the network. These actions resulted in intensive pressure on the Pakistani government to conduct a thorough investigation. Once started, the Pakistani investigation led relatively quickly to Khan’s confession that he supplied gas centrifuge items to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. IAEA and national investigations continue to seek a full understanding of the network and the history and procurement activities of Libya’s, Iran’s, and North Korea’s secret gas centrifuge programs.

Turn-Key Centrifuge Plant and Bomb Designs

One of the biggest surprises about this network was its sheer audacity and scale. It intended to provide Libya a turn-key gas centrifuge facility, something typically reserved for states or large corporations in industrialized nations with full government support and knowledge. The plan called for the network to supply 10,000 centrifuges, piping to connect them together, detailed project designs for the centrifuge plant, electrical and electronic equipment, uranium feed and withdrawal equipment, the initial 20 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride, equipment to allow Libya to make more uranium hexafluoride, centrifuge designs, manufacturing equipment and technology to make more centrifuges indigenously, and on-going technical assistance to help Libya overcome any obstacles in assembling and operating the centrifuges in the plant.

If Libya had continued with its nuclear ambitions and the network had not been exposed, Libya could have succeeded in about 4-5 years in assembling its centrifuge plant and operating it to produce significant amounts of HEU. If Libya managed to operate all 10,000 centrifuges, it would have had a plant with a capacity of up to 50,000 separative work units (SWU).

Armed with the HEU, Libya would have known how to turn that HEU into nuclear weapons. The network provided Libya with information to build a workable nuclear weapon. Libya received almost all of the detailed nuclear weapon component designs, component fabrication information, and assembly instructions for a nuclear weapon. The few missing designs could have been provided by the network, or Libya could have developed them on its own in the several years prior to the start of the centrifuge plant.

The weapons documents appear to be information Pakistan received from China in the early 1980’s, including hand-written notes from lectures given in China. The design is reportedly for a Chinese warhead that was tested on a missile, has a mass of about 500 kilograms, and measures less than a meter in diameter. Although this design would not have fit on Libyan SCUD missiles, it could have been air-dropped or intended for a more advanced missile Libya may have sought. The design would have fit on Iranian and North Korean missiles.

As part of Libya’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, it voluntarily gave the United States, Britain, and the IAEA centrifuge design documents, centrifuge components, and nuclear weapons documents. Libya sent the gas centrifuge items and nuclear weapons documents to the United States for safekeeping.

Although questions remain about the exact involvement of Pakistani government officials in the network and the extent of senior Pakistani government awareness of the activities of A. Q. Khan and his associates in this network, the Pakistani government was not directing this network. It was essentially a criminal operation, a more disturbing and dangerous operation than if it had been a secret government-controlled effort.

Getting at all the Nodes of the Network

As of early July 2004, much remains to be discovered about this network before its operations are fully understood or its complete demise can be celebrated. It is necessary for governments and the IAEA to be persistent in investigating this case. If these investigations are not done thoroughly, the risk will be greater that a similar network could rise again from the remnants of the disbanded Khan network.

Identifying all the Key Players and Their Activities

The network was the creation of A. Q. Khan and his associates who sought to capitalize on the elaborate, highly successful illicit procurement network they had created to supply the Pakistani gas centrifuge program beginning in the 1970s. It had many manifestations over the years and involved many people from a variety of countries. Some international suppliers and middlemen had long working relationships with Khan and remained committed to the network for two or more decades. Some of these individuals had undergone official investigations and prosecutions in past years, yet they continued working clandestinely in this network.

The latest manifestation of the network, which focused on providing Libya with gas centrifuges, was coordinated by B. S. A. Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in Dubai and Malaysia. It represented the capstone of this multi-decade illicit procurement effort centered in Pakistan.

There was also a familial aspect to the network. Europeans who were involved in the 1970s or 1980s had sons that became involved with them in the 1990s.

Many legal investigations of members of the network have started. Momentum may in fact be increasing around the world to prosecute the key players in this network. But a critical task is determining all the players and their activities. The ultimate goal should be prosecuting them as fully as possible under both export control laws and laws banning exports to terrorist states, such as Libya. This process will likely take years.

Determining the Network’s Customers

Although Khan has admitted that he provided centrifuge items to Libya, North Korea, and Iran, little has been reported about other recipients of centrifuge or nuclear weapon assistance. Many details of Khan’s and his associates’ assistance remain unknown, particularly in regards to North Korea.

Although considerable information now exists about gas centrifuge assistance to Iran and Libya, far less information is available about the gas centrifuge assistance to North Korea. This deficiency has resulted from North Korea’s denial that it has a gas centrifuge program, the lack of IAEA inspections in North Korea, and Pakistan’s perceived reluctance to provide information about its nuclear dealings with North Korea.

A key question is whether Iran or North Korea also received nuclear weapon information. There is evidence of what appears to have been an early Khan effort in late 1990 to offer centrifuge help and nuclear weapons design information to Iraq. Iraq was not able to pursue this offer other than deciding to request a sample of the offer just prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the start of which ended that effort.

Questions remain whether Syria was a customer for centrifuge or nuclear weapon assistance, although Khan has denied selling anything to Syria. There is also speculation about other customers, including Saudi Arabia, Burma, and al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations that were based in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban.

In any case, this part of the investigation is not finished. Determining all the customers and what they received will take considerable time.

Taking Stock of the Manufacturers of the P2 Centrifuge Parts

The network sold what the Pakistanis have called the P1 and P2 centrifuges, the first two centrifuges deployed in large numbers by Pakistan’s gas centrifuge program. The P1 centrifuge uses an aluminum rotor, and the P2 centrifuge uses a maraging steel rotor.

The components for roughly 500 P1 centrifuges that went to Iran in the mid-90s were, according to reports, from centrifuges that Pakistan had retired from its main centrifuge program. Members of the network were able to remove them in secret and sell them to Iran.

Libya received 20 of its P1s in that manner. Libya also bought about 200 P1 centrifuges from the wider network. At least some, if not all, of the components of the additional 200 P1s were made outside Pakistan at workshops under contract with companies in the network. Aluminum rotors, for example, were made in Malaysia.

The P2 centrifuges, which are more advanced machines, reportedly left Pakistan in much smaller numbers. The two that were sent to Libya, for example, were samples or demonstration models. One of the P2s that went to Libya was not suitable for enrichment with uranium hexafluoride gas. It did not have the final surface coating necessary to prevent corrosion by uranium hexafluoride gas.

In the case of Libya, the network focused on making P2 components outside Pakistan. The Libyans have stated that they placed an order for 10,000 P2 machines. Since each centrifuge has roughly 100 different components, this order translates into a total of about one million components, a staggering number of parts given the sophistication of gas centrifuge components. The network was assembling an impressive cast of experts, companies, suppliers, and workshops to make all these components.

The workshops that contracted to make components for the network typically imported the necessary items, such as metals, equipment, or subcomponents. After they made the item, they would then send it - either assembled or as a finished centrifuge component - to Dubai under a false end-user certificate. Then it would be repackaged and sent off to Libya. According to Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA, “Nuclear components designed in one country could be manufactured in another, shipped through a third (which may have appeared to be a legitimate user), assembled in a fourth, and designated for eventual turn-key use in a fifth.”

Based on information found in Libya, roughly half a dozen key workshops have been identified as making or doing final assembly of the centrifuge components. The network selected a workshop based on the type of centrifuge component needed and the materials and equipment involved in making those particular components. It remains unclear, however, if these are all the workshops involved in making components for Libya and other recipients.

The most well known workshop was located in Malaysia at a company called SCOPE. The parts seized on the BBC China were from SCOPE. SCOPE was also near the company that made the aluminum rotors for the 200 P1 centrifuges that Libya imported from the network.

The network contracted with SCOPE to make thousands of 14 different high precision aluminum centrifuge components for Libya’s order. The contract with SCOPE involved up to about 15 percent of the total number of components sought by the network for Libya.

Workshops in Turkey made the centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from Europe and elsewhere, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false end-user certificates, these components were shipped to Dubai for repackaging and shipment to Libya. A container of at least some of these items was also on the BBC China, but it was not discovered by investigators after its interception. Eventually, the container arrived in Libya and was declared to the United States and the IAEA.

SCOPE did not make the P2 centrifuges’ maraging steel parts, which comprise the bulk of the rotating components in a centrifuge and are more difficult to make than the aluminum parts. A mystery is which workshop, if any, was contracted to make the sensitive maraging steel rotor and bellows. The network appears to have experienced trouble in finding a workshop to make these components, although one workshop may have tried unsuccessfully to make the maraging steel rotors. In the end, the network may have been unable to find a workshop to make these components, and Libya may have needed to make them itself. Libya may have initially intended to buy all the components overseas, but it may not have been able to do so in the end.

Libya also ordered from the network a sophisticated manufacturing center, code-named Workshop 1001, to make centrifuge components. The original plan called for this center to make additional centrifuges after the network delivered the first 10,000 centrifuges, either to replace broken ones or add to the total number of centrifuges. However, if the network had difficulty making a component for the original 10,000 machines, this center may have had to make that particular component.

Most of the machine tools, furnaces, and other equipment for the center came from Europe, particularly from or through Spain and Italy. The equipment was not on the nuclear dual-use list, but it was still adequate for use in a centrifuge manufacturing program, particularly because the network also supplied detailed manufacturing information for almost all the parts. The bulk, if not all, of this equipment was sent to Libya via Dubai.

Investigations of the supply chain of the network are unfinished. It is not known if all the key workshops and companies have been identified. Components may have been made but not delivered to Libya. Components may have also been made and delivered to customers other than Libya.

Retrieving Centrifuge Designs and Manufacturing Instructions from the Network

The key to the success of this network was its virtual library of centrifuge designs and detailed manufacturing manuals. A key task is to track down the members of the network with this kind of sensitive centrifuge information, prosecute them, and try to retrieve as much of this information as possible.

Although tracking down this kind of information can be difficult, the network may have helped by tightly controlling this information and not widely disseminating it. For example, the February 2004 Malaysian police report describes the activities of the Swiss national Urs Tinner at the SCOPE factory. Urs is the son of Friedrich Tinner, who earlier supplied Pakistan’s and Iraq’s secret centrifuge program in the 1980’s. Urs carefully controlled the centrifuge design information. He took it to SCOPE to program the machines to make the centrifuge components, but he made sure that others could not remove this sensitive information. When he finished working at SCOPE, he removed the information and took it with him.

The fact that the information may be in the hands of just a few members of the network gives hope that it can be retrieved. However, retrieving all the centrifuge information may not be possible, since copies can be made and hidden for years if desired. Thus, even if the retrieval effort is reasonably successful, this centrifuge information may form the core of a future network aimed at secretly producing or selling gas centrifuges.

Findings and Recommendations

A priority is preventing illicit networks like the Khan network and other nuclear smuggling using less elaborate methods. In addition, steps are needed to increase the probability of discovering undeclared nuclear efforts before they are as advanced as the programs in Libya and Iran.

The first priority is fully investigating and dismantling the Khan network. Investigations need to continue and intensify in a range of states, including Malaysia, Switzerland, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, UAE, Germany, South Africa, and Turkey. More information is needed from states that benefited from this network, particularly Libya, Iran, and eventually North Korea. In addition, Pakistan’s cooperation is critical. The Pakistani government has provided useful information to the IAEA and other governments, and it appears committed to providing more information. However, the Pakistani government should permit the IAEA, and perhaps other governments, direct access to A. Q. Khan and his associates involved in the network.

The successes of the Khan network should shatter any complacency about the effectiveness of national and international nuclear-related export controls to stop or sound an alarm about illegal nuclear or nuclear-related exports. The network was masterful in identifying countries that had inadequate national export laws yet adequate industrial capability for the network’s purposes. These countries were both inside and outside the NSG. Although many suppliers to the network did not know the actual purpose of the materials they provided or the parts they were contracted to make, they were often in countries where the authorities were unlikely to carefully scrutinize exports or encourage curiosity about the actual end use of an item. The companies themselves had little motivation — either from conscience or threat of punishment — to confirm the explanations they were given. The network also knew how to obtain for its illicit endeavors necessary subcomponents, materials, machine tools, and other manufacturing equipment from countries in Europe with stringent export control systems.

NSG efforts to stop illegal exports should be improved. The NSG should be expanded in membership to include states that, while not normally considered actual or potential suppliers of nuclear items, have advanced industrial and manufacturing infrastructures that can be exploited for the production of direct-use nuclear items, such as centrifuge components. The network operated in countries outside the NSG such as Malaysia that had little knowledge of nuclear technology or effective export controls but had high-tech industries eager to make direct-use nuclear items apparently oblivious or indifferent to the actual nature of the item. By expanding NSG membership, more countries will improve their export control systems and receive help from more experienced members that will reduce the chance of cases like SCOPE happening again.

In addition, NSG members should share more information about actual procurements among themselves and with the IAEA. Currently, NSG members share any denials of an export but not the approvals of key items. The IAEA does not even routinely receive the denial information. NSG members should share key approvals, and the IAEA should receive both the denials and these key approvals. Sharing of this information would help members of the NSG and the IAEA develop a better picture of a potential proliferant’s overall nuclear capability, potentially leading to significantly earlier warnings of undeclared nuclear activities.

Two recent initiatives aim to correct shortcomings in the current national and international export control systems. However, they do not go far enough.

The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which is credited with the seizure of the centrifuge components on the BBC China, usefully complements existing export control systems. PSI has improved the chance of interdicting WMD, ballistic missiles, and the means to produce them while such items are in transit to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern. However, it cannot alone fix the fundamental weaknesses of the current export control system exposed by the discovery of the Khan network.

The April 2004 UN Security Council Resolution 1540 fills a serious gap in existing WMD non-proliferation regimes that target only states and omit non-state actors. It is expected to make it harder for nuclear smuggling to occur. An immediate improvement is that all 191 UN member states must establish, review, and maintain appropriate effective nuclear and nuclear-related export controls. By applying to almost all states, this resolution helps fix some of the problems posed by the voluntary, limited membership of the NSG. However, the resolution has several problems. Some states may resist key provisions of this resolution, believing that the law should have been established through treaty negotiations. The law will likely be applied unevenly among states. Without extensive assistance, many key states will experience difficulties in enacting effective export control legislation, implementing it, and enforcing it.

Missing in the current system is an aggressive, intrusive verification and investigation organization that can provide greater confidence that states are implementing effective export controls, flag deficiencies in the export control practices, and detect illicit nuclear and nuclear-related procurements.

What is needed is a universal treaty-based system controlling nuclear export activities that is binding on states and includes a means to verify their compliance. Under such a treaty, countries would implement a set of nuclear and nuclear-related export control laws and criminalization procedures, similar in nature to those required by UNSC Resolution 1540. The agreement, however, would also mandate an organization to verify compliance, ensure the adequacy of those laws, and investigate illicit procurement activities. Signatories would inform this organization of all sensitive nuclear or nuclear-related exports, and it would have the mandate and legal rights to verify that the transactions are indeed legal. The organization would verify that a country’s declaration about its nuclear or nuclear-related exports or imports is accurate and complete.

The IAEA is a logical choice to undertake this role. It is already pursuing investigations of illicit procurement activities by Iran and Libya as part of its safeguards responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). These investigations include taking inventories of all centrifuge equipment and components in Iran and Libya and verifying their accuracy and completeness, determining the suppliers and manufacturing activities of the network, cooperating with a range of governments on the activities of the network, receiving supplier information from member states, and meeting with Pakistani investigators. These investigations involve receiving more information from states than required by the Additional Protocol.

Libya, Iran, Pakistan, and other states have provided the IAEA specific information about nuclear and nuclear-related procurements. Armed with this information, the IAEA has more effectively conducted investigations into the Khan network and the procurement activities of Iran and Libya that are directly related to its safeguards responsibilities. In particular, the IAEA is in a much stronger position to make a determination about Iran’s and Libya’s compliance with the NPT and the steps necessary to develop confidence about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities or materials in these two countries.

Expanding the IAEA’s mandate by requiring states to report on a wider variety of exports would be a logical extension of current safeguards which place great emphasis on developing a broader picture of a state’s nuclear and nuclear capable infrastructure. This new mandate should be seen as part of implementing credible safeguards.

The Additional Protocol does require reporting of exports of direct-use nuclear items, but in practice nuclear smuggling networks would export those items illegally. States would often not know the true nature of those items and thus could not report them. Dual-use items with legal export licenses that often would be more likely on a routine basis to reveal undeclared activities are not reported to the IAEA under the Protocol.

In addition, a treaty-based system of export controls and verification would impose new requirements on all states, even those that have not implemented the Protocol. In any case, state declarations submitted under the protocol or as part of a new treaty regime should be broadened to include the export of dual-use items.

By more formally linking its safeguards system with export control verification and monitoring, the IAEA would be in far better position to assure the absence of undeclared nuclear activities and detect cheating in a timely manner. By performing a task that governments have been unable to do, the IAEA under such a treaty-based system would significantly increase U.S. and international security.

[nw_arizona_granny]

[Many articles to check out, nuclear and OBL]

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/intro.html

[To Transcript] [To Story] [To Images]
Al Qaeda Nuclear and Conventional Explosive Documents: CNN - ISIS Collaboration
Introduction

In November 2001, as the Taliban was fleeing Kabul, ISIS was contacted by CNN to help assess al Qaeda documents containing information about nuclear weapons.1 CNN Senior Producer Ingrid Arnesen had acquired many documents related to al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan on both nuclear and conventional explosives.

Over the next two months, ISIS staff translated and assessed these documents. The documents include: instructor guides on making conventional explosives; edited, mass-produced instructional materials; nuclear weapon documents; student notebooks; and information about the activities and plans of Pakistani nuclear scientists in Afghanistan.

ISIS President David Albright, with the assistance of ISIS Senior Analyst Corey Hinderstein and Arabist Ronald Wolfe, was able to decipher and analyze these documents. Many of these conclusions were discussed and expanded in the first half of January 2002 during intensive sessions with CNN producers and correspondent Mike Boettcher. A summary of many of ISIS’s findings aired on January 17, 2002 in a half-hour special report by CNN, and were further discussed on other CNN shows, including shows hosted by Wolf Blitzer and Aaron Brown. CNN subsequently published an in-depth report based on this story on the CNN web site and a gallery of images, which are reproduced on the ISIS web site.

1See, for example, reports by Aaron Brown and Christiane Amanpour

[Need to check the transcripts, links at url]

[nw_arizona_granny]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0315-04.htm

Published on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 by Reuters
Pakistan Reviving Nuclear Black Market, Experts Say
by Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA — Pakistan has developed new illicit channels to upgrade its nuclear weapons program, despite efforts by the U.N. atomic watchdog to shut down all illegal procurement avenues, diplomats and nuclear experts said.

Western diplomats familiar with an investigation of the nuclear black market by the U.N.’s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said this news was disturbing.

While Pakistan appeared to be shopping for its own needs, the existence of some nuclear black market channels meant there were still ways for rogue states or terrorist groups to acquire technology that could be used in atomic weapons, they said.

“General procurement efforts (by Pakistan) are going on. It is a determined effort,” a diplomat from a member of the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“This was discussed at an NSG meeting in Vienna last week.”

Nuclear experts said these channels involved new middlemen who had not played a role in earlier deals which came to light last year.

These are not the same people. They’re new, which is worrying,” said one Western diplomat.

Pakistan is subject to sanctions against its atomic arms program as it has not signed the 1968 global nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Pakistan first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998 and remains under a strict embargo by the NSG, whose members include the world’s major producers of nuclear-related equipment, such as the United States, Russia and China.

A diplomat from another NSG country that is a producer of technology usable in weapons programs said his country’s customs agents were not surprised. “Our people are well aware of Pakistan’s efforts to upgrade its centrifuge program.”

Asked if Pakistan was using the black market to upgrade its facilities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said in Islamabad: “To be honest, I don’t have an update on that.”

“Pakistan’s nuclear capability is a reality which has to be reconciled, and obviously in order to maintain its capability Pakistan would make all the preparations,” he added.

An IAEA spokeswoman declined to comment.

The black market will be a major topic of discussion at the NPT review conference in New York in May, where IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei hopes to rally support for a plan to patch up loopholes in the pact against the spread of nuclear arms.

FRONT COMPANIES AND MIDDLEMEN

Being outside the NPT, like nuclear-armed India and presumed atomic power Israel, meant Pakistan had to buy on the sly.

This was why Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced scientist who built Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and whose role was revealed in 2003, set up a clandestine procurement network with front companies and middlemen who duped manufacturers across the globe into thinking purchases of sensitive dual-use items were intended for civilian purposes.

Khan later used this network to supply Iran, which says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, and Libya, which got the same type of technology as Iran but said it was for a covert bomb program that was fully dismantled last year.

It was unclear if Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would bring up the issue during her visit this week to Pakistan, a key ally in Washington’s fight against global terrorism.

Non-U.S. diplomats and experts said Washington was not putting enough pressure on Pakistan.

“Some countries seem to have forgotten that Pakistan’s procurement is not legitimate,” said David Albright, a nuclear expert and former U.N. weapons inspector.

The diplomats said national authorities had intercepted some of Pakistan’s attempted purchases, including high-strength aluminum for gas centrifuges used to make atomic fuel.

Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a U.S. think-tank, said a warning was issued last year that Pakistan would be shopping globally.

“A European country gave out a warning about a year ago that Pakistan had funding to renovate its nuclear weapons complex and would use Malaysia as a false end-use location,” Albright said.

The IAEA began investigating Khan’s network in 2003 after it discovered Iran had enrichment technology identical to Pakistan.

Since that time, the IAEA and its member countries have been trying to shut down network of Khan, who remains under house arrest in Pakistan. The United States, Germany, South Africa and Malaysia have arrested individuals linked to the network.

While Khan may no longer be running it, Joe Cirincione, director of non-proliferation at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the black market was still alive.

“The network hasn’t been shut down,” he said. “It’s just gotten quieter. Perhaps it’s gone a little deeper underground.”

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Islamabad)

[nw_arizona_granny]

The Bioterrorism Threat by non-state terrorists

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/theses/thompson06.pdf

Many articles:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/

Links:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/

Books:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/publications/

August 2007 articles:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/index.asp

Home:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/index.asp

[nw_arizona_granny]

August 23, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News

(U.S.) Holy Land Foundation Trial - Fearing the Law They Face — by The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/08/fearing_the_law_they_face.php

(U.S.) Prosecutor raises ‘Trojan horse’ theory in Seda case - Former U.S. head of al-Haramain fights for bail
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/NEWS/708230319

(U.S.) Muslim group fights co-conspirator label in terror-funding trial
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/23/america/NA-GEN-US-Muslim-Charity-Conspiracy.php

(Afghanistan) Twenty-six killed in violence across Afghanistan - update
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070823/wl_nm/afghan_violence_dc_1;_ylt=AuWwyvEfkb.9u0b5_qRssXbOVooA

(Afghanistan) Three dead in Afghan bomb attack - near the town of Gereshk - update
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6960223.stm

Pakistan: ‘Talks with Taliban’ tied to energy needs - Turkmenistan, Afghanistan & Pakistan close to agreeing to new 2,200 km
gas pipeline
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1229363578

(Pakistan) U.S. OK’d Troop Terror Hunts in Pakistan - U.S. military given broad incursion authority in 2004 without telling Pakistanis
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3515989

(Iraq) Al-Qaeda suspects held after Baquba raid
http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=438869&lng=1

(U.S. & Iraq) National Intelligence Estimate Casts Doubt on Baghdad Government, Official Says
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294239,00.html
- Download new report here
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/August_2007_Iraq_NIE_KJs.pdf

(U.S.) Report: Iraqi terrorists caught along Mexico border — American intelligence chief confirms ‘people are alive’
as a result of capture
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57289

(U.S.) To thwart a nuclear terrorist, U.S. directing trade partners to inspect millions of containers
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=BUSINESS&ID=565074042651281318

UK court denies bail for terror suspect — Algerian “U” - arrested on suspicion in planning attacks on Los Angeles airport
and in Strasbourg, France
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070823/ap_on_re_eu/britain_terror_suspect_1;_ylt=Ain7YK3gclsBvpPI_5Uta9AwuecA

(UK) Scotland: Student trained in terror in Edinburgh — Mohammed Atif Siddique trial update
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1341342007

(UK) Scotland: Terror trial hears threat claims — Mohammed Atif Siddique threatened to “blow up Glasgow”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/6960285.stm

(Lebanon) Cluster Bomb Kills Lebanese - Mine expert killed, 3 wounded from mine from last year’s war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6871531,00.html

(Lebanon) Hezbollah exhibits ‘victory’ over Israel
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070823/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_hezbollah_museum_3;_ylt=Ak.zCfbXkjSBYy4OwxtwTWnagGIB

(Belgium) Pro-Hezbollah Group Will Demonstrate in Brussels on 9/11 — “against Islamophobia” - founder called 9/11 attacks
“sweet revenge”
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2347

(Gaza) Two Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip land in Sderot
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187779146620&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israeli strike in Gaza kills Hamas militant
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-08-23T204220Z_01_L23774893_RTRUKOC_0_UK-PALESTINIANS-ISRAEL-AIRSTRIKE.xml

MEMRI Video: Hamas MP Fathi Hammad Threatens to Use Suicide Bombings against Abu Mazen
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1538.htm

Commentary: Jihad International — by Jacob Laksin
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/news/58/jihad-international/

Other News:

CNN airs ‘one of the most distorted programs’ ever — Documentary compares Jews, Christians to Muslim terrorists
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57288